Stephen Bunting beat Luke Humphries 6-3 in Sheffield to claim his second nightly win of the 2026 Premier League Darts season and finish with a fifth-place standing. He closed out the final in 12 darts after opening with six perfect darts at 5-3 up, and he hit seven 180s in a final he controlled from the middle stages.
The win mattered because it came at the end of the campaign and reshaped the final standings for next Thursday’s night at London’s O2 Arena. Humphries still moved up to third overall after reaching the final, which meant he avoided a semi-final against Luke Littler and will now face Jonny Clayton, while Gerwyn Price takes on Littler in the other last-four match.
Bunting had already done enough to show how far he had come before the final even began. He beat Clayton 6-3 in the quarter-finals, then came from 2-0 down against Price in the semi-finals, with a 161 checkout the first of three straight 100-plus finishes in that comeback. By the time he met Humphries, his scoring was relentless. He averaged 106.37 in the final and landed another win that confirmed his first nightly victory since night four in Belfast was no one-off.
Humphries also arrived in the final with serious form. He averaged 105.24 to beat Michael van Gerwen in a last-leg decider in the quarter-finals, then swept past Littler 6-1 in the semi-finals and won six legs in a row. That run carried added weight because Littler had been trying to break his own record points total and number of nightly wins in the Premier League, but he fell short after an 87.89 average in a tight quarter-final against Josh Rock.
Bunting, though, produced the cleaner finish when it counted. He said he had been hard on himself during the night but was delighted to end up fifth, and added that people had written him off and said he should not be in the competition. He said he wanted to stay in the Premier League for years, calling the result a massive statement. That is what Sheffield gave him: proof that he belongs in the 2026 premier league darts conversation, not just as a participant, but as a player who can still decide the night.
