Monday, 5 January 2026

2026 Second/Third Division Darts selections

So, with the Premier League lineup being chosen, which I think is probably the best they could have done with it, we can go into the 2nd/3rd division picks for 2026:

Division Two:

On last season's rankings - Gary Anderson, Ross Smith
On last season's third division rankings - Wessel Nijman
On year end FRH rankings - Ryan Searle, James Wade, Danny Noppert, Nathan Aspinall
Wildcard one - Chris Dobey (highest player not in on both 2025 scoring and 2025 FRH rankings)
Wildcard two - Jermaine Wattimena (second highest in FRH rankings not in, fourth in 2025 scoring from those not already selected anywhere)
Wildcard three - Damon Heta (real shortage of players who have a combination of scoring as well as ranking, Heta has the latter but not really the former, but was in the top half of last year's second division so will give another shot)

Division Three:

On last season's rankings - Niels Zonneveld, Niko Springer
World youth champion - in Premier League
On year end FRH rankings - Martin Schindler, Kevin Doets, Callan Rydz, Connor Scutt
Wildcard one - Beau Greaves (world championship runner up, very dominant Challenge/Development Tour season, looks like she can compete at this level already)
Wildcard two - Sebastian Bialecki (solid Development Tour season, has shown very high peak, Pro Tour winner)
Wildcard three - Bradley Brooks (hugely improved over last 12-18 months, Pro Tour winner, highest scoring of anyone not selected who isn't likely to get a ban in the near future)
Wildcard four - Cam Crabtree (Development Tour winner, most sensible pick when looking at combination of rankings and scoring)

Always tricky to pick the last couple at each ranking, and next year in division three it might get tougher given there are a lot of players hitting 30 this year and hence making themselves ineligible for the next season. In terms of division two, Dirk and Cross had good scoring but I feel lacked results, Schindler was close on ranking but Heta had much better scoring to compensate for the one position difference. Woodhouse was behind Heta in more or less any metric I looked at, only mention him as another top 20 FRH player, de Decker is actually outscoring him but is only really holding on to a top 20 spot from his major last year. Third division was a bit less controversial. Although not listed in that order, Bialecki probably was the closest to getting bumped, Meikle has a decent ranking and is outscoring Bialecki a touch, but I'm going to give Sebastian the nudge having won an event this year and possibly I feel taking a big step in a second year of a tour card. I'd maybe have considered Manby or van den Herik if we knew they were getting cards, but we don't, get on the tour and have a steady season and you'll be in consideration. Not sure anyone else with an actual card already was under real consideration, maybe Dominik Gruellich is the only other name, but I don't think he's done that much outside of that Pro Tour final, everyone else in did more for me.

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