Post WC thoughts, Premier League thoughts, year end FRH rankings

Wow, what a performance by Rob Cross that was. Simply didn't give Taylor any chance whatsoever. Pity Phil couldn't pin that nine darter, oh well. Think it's been a really interesting tournament to see a lot of newer names progressing, which has resulted in big churn in the Premier League. Can't argue with any of the selections and it's the ten that I would have chosen - they've got numbers 1-12 from the FRH rankings excluding Taylor and Chisnall, which seems fine to me. Would have been a bit too early for Lewis or van den Bergh, and could probably have done their careers more harm than good, nobody else was making a compelling case. Darren Webster maybe, but that's about it.

Season is now up and here's the season end FRH rankings - LY indicates the position the player was at in the previous season:

TY	LY	Name	FRH Points
1	1	Michael van Gerwen	1.13m
2	NR	Rob Cross	598k
3	3	Peter Wright	516k
4	7	Phil Taylor	380k
5	18	Daryl Gurney	333k
6	2	Gary Anderson	285k
7	8	Mensur Suljovic	251k
8	16	Simon Whitlock	224k
9	5	Dave Chisnall	202k
10	14	Michael Smith	194k
11	9	Raymond van Barneveld	188k
12	19	Gerwyn Price	179k
13	17	Alan Norris	171k
14	13	Ian White	166k
15	4	James Wade	166k
16	27	Darren Webster	161k
17	11	Benito van de Pas	157k
18	12	Kim Huybrechts	155k
19	10	Jelle Klaasen	146k
20	23	Joe Cullen	144k
21	21	Stephen Bunting	127k
22	6	Adrian Lewis	126k
23	22	Mervyn King	123k
24	30	Kyle Anderson	122k
25	26	Steve Beaton	121k
26	34	Jamie Lewis	118k
27	39	John Henderson	118k
28	50	Jonny Clayton	115k
29	28	Justin Pipe	108k
30	33	Cristo Reyes	106k
31	15	Robert Thornton	104k
32	37	Steve West	103k
33	31	James Wilson	94.4k
34	29	Vincent van der Voort	89.5k
35	48	Dimitri van den Bergh	82.6k
36	40	Christian Kist	78.8k
37	35	Chris Dobey	71.7k
38	44	Jermaine Wattimena	71.6k
39	24	Mark Webster	70.8k
40	25	Brendan Dolan	65.9k
41	60	James Richardson	65.1k
42	47	Ronny Huybrechts	64.9k
43	57	Jan Dekker	63.4k
44	NR	Richard North	55.5k
45	53	Keegan Brown	55.4k
46	36	Robbie Green	51.5k
47	78	Zoran Lerchbacher	50.5k
48	46	Kevin Painter	48.6k
49	NR	Steve Lennon	45.2k
50	NR	Antonio Alcinas	41.0k
51	85	Willie O'Connor	40.7k
52	32	Jamie Caven	40.6k
53	NR	Peter Jacques	39.3k
54	20	Terry Jenkins	38.8k
55	55	Ron Meulenkamp	38.5k
56	NR	Martin Schindler	38.1k
57	51	Devon Petersen	37.9k
58	38	Max Hopp	35.4k
59	NR	Krzysztof Ratajski	35.1k
60	42	Joe Murnan	30.9k
61	54	Jeffrey de Graaf	30.8k
62	45	Josh Payne	29.9k
63	41	Andrew Gilding	28.0k
64	NR	Ted Evetts	27.7k
65	43	Rowby John Rodriguez	26.0k
66	52	Mick McGowan	25.5k
67	65	John Michael	25.0k
68	82	Nathan Aspinall	24.9k
69	68	Jeffrey de Zwaan	23.6k
70	49	Ricky Evans	22.5k
71	NR	Glen Durrant	22.5k
72	69	Kim Viljanen	22.1k
73	72	Berry van Peer	21.5k
74	NR	Ryan Searle	21.5k
75	91	Darren Johnson	21.0k
76	61	Andy Boulton	20.9k
77	96	Mike de Decker	20.7k
78	71	Michael Mansell	20.5k
79	NR	Pete Hudson	19.5k
80	62	Dirk van Duijvenbode	19.5k
81	NR	Chris Quantock	19.3k
82	NR	Kevin Munch	18.9k
83	NR	Paul Lim	18.5k
84	NR	Robert Owen	18.3k
85	NR	Paul Nicholson	17.3k
86	63	Andy Jenkins	17.1k
87	NR	Jimmy Hendriks	16.8k
88	58	Dave Pallett	16.5k
89	66	Simon Stevenson	15.9k
90	NR	Diogo Portela	15.7k
91	NR	Steve Hine	15.7k
92	NR	Kirk Shepherd	15.2k
93	NR	Jamie Bain	15.1k
94	NR	Jeff Smith	15.0k
95	56	Andy Hamilton	14.6k
96	NR	Richard Corner	14.1k
97	NR	Marko Kantele	13.5k
98	70	Mark Walsh	13.2k
99	95	Matt Clark	13.2k
100	93	Yordi Meeuwisse	13.2k

In total, that's a churn of 24 players, the highest ranked player form last year not to reappear being last season's number 59 Mark Frost (although he wasn't far off). Obviously Rob Cross is the highest new entrant, but three other players managed to crack the top 50 from outside last year.

So what for the FRH Second Division Darts for this season? I'm going to score it a little differently this year - rather than just taking the first result between players, I'm going to add up all the legs won and work out the percentage each wins against the other. If you're 75% or over, that's the full two points, 25% or under, zilch, and progressing linearly between the two. Who will we invite?

Four highest active players not playing in the Premier League - Dave Chisnall, Alan Norris, Ian White, James Wade
FRH Wildcards - Kyle Anderson, Adrian Lewis, Joe Cullen, Darren Webster, Jamie Lewis, Dimitri van den Bergh

That seems like a good selection. I was tempted to say that if Durrant went deep at Lakeside, switched and won his tour card that I'd invite him straight in, but that's a big combination of if's. For those that are high up that missed out, van de Pas, Huybrechts and Klaasen have done little all year and all crashed out of the worlds at the first hurdle, Bunting's getting back there but hasn't shown quite enough yet. Lewis at least showed the quality in the Matchplay and is probably the biggest name not in the Premier League proper, Anderson's won on TV and the tour, Webster and Cullen have had great years on tour and Webster also had a solid worlds, while the other Lewis and Dimitri crashed the worlds and made huge breakthroughs that I think warrant entry into this. I just hope Adie plays enough that he can match up frequently with these, but being out of the top 16 basically forces him to. Once we're under way I'll make a spreadsheet and put up a link in the links bar rather than post updates in here.

I hope to get some brief BDO analysis up later in the week, I also intend to shove the Premier League players through the master computer and project what'll happen in the first nine weeks.