Johnny Clayton is one win away from an all-Welsh Premier League final at The O2 in London, where the 51-year-old and Gerwyn Price will both appear on finals night for the second time. Clayton and Price are being tipped as underdogs in their semi-finals against Luke Humphries and Luke Littler, but the Welsh pair still have the Premier League trophy and a £350,000 top prize in sight on Thursday night.
Clayton said it would be great to see the night end with two Welshmen facing each other for the title. “We’re Welsh and proud,” he said. “We’ve got two very hard Englishmen to beat if we’re going to have that final.”
The backdrop is familiar. Humphries won the 2025 Premier League final after losing to Littler a year earlier, keeping alive the idea of another Luke v Luke finish to the season. Clayton, though, has already gone beyond what bookmakers expected when the 2026 campaign began. Before the tournament, he was the firm outsider to win it, even though he is world number five and had reached finals night every time he has played in the competition.
That was why the talk in early February hit him so hard. Clayton said he was “gutted to hear that” he was rated the least-likely winner, and could not square it with where he believes his game sits. “Being world number five, having not won any big majors to get me up there, so I’m pretty consistent, and then they reckon I’d finish bottom,” he said. “Obviously they weren’t drinking the same tea as I was drinking. But to be fair, I’ve put a lot of people quiet.”
He backed up that view in the league phase, finishing second and extending his 100% record of reaching finals night. Clayton won the Premier League on debut in 2021, and he said missing out last year still lingered because he felt he should have been involved. “I think being out of the Premier League last year, that really hurt when I should have been in,” he said. “But I’ve proved my point, I’m back in the top four. Look out. Hopefully I can win tomorrow.”
That leaves Thursday night as more than a stage for the sport’s biggest names. It is also a test of whether the tournament’s supposed outsider can turn another strong run into a second title, while the Welsh crowd hopes the night ends with Clayton and Price playing for the trophy between them.
