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And a below-par Phil Taylor was still too good for Dutchman Roland Scholten, as ‘The Power’ made it three wins out of three to stay on top of the Premier League table.

Lloyd was forced to play through the pain barrier because of severe back pain and he had to dig deep to clinch his first win of the tournament, finally beating Manley 8 legs to 6.

The result leaves Manley still searching for his first points. A brilliant 160 check-out saw Lloyd take control early on but Manley, helped by a 141 finish, clawed his way back to five legs apiece.

‘One-Dart’ went ahead for the first time in the match in the 11th leg but he failed to press home his advantage against the World No.1, who was clearly struggling on the stage.
Manley missed darts in the next two legs to at least clinch a point and Lloyd won it in style, with a fantastic 10 dart leg.

He said: “It was just good to get over the winning line. It was a real struggle up there with my back playing up. I will get some treatment over the next couple of days and see how I go.”

But Lloyd hasn’t got much time to shake off the problem. Fresh from his victory at the Irish Masters last weekend, he is back on the Emerald Isle this weekend – looking to win the West Tyrone Open for a third year running.

Phil Taylor’s remarkable record in the Premier League goes on. Unicorn’s 13-times World Champion is yet to lose a match in the tournament since it started in January last year.

But that proud record may have fallen at the Seaburn Leisure Centre, if Scholten had taken his chances.

‘The Power’ looked to be switched on as he won the opening two legs with classy 106 and 111 kills. Scholten though, found his range, winning the next three and the Dutchman should have made it 4-2 but amazingly missed five darts at double 4.

Memories went back to that dramatic Premier League semi-final in Manchester last May, when Scholten led 11-6 but couldn’t finish the job and history was to repeat itself.

Despite Scholten hitting seven 180s, he again missed five darts to take out the 9th leg and Taylor completed victory by 8 legs to 4.
He averaged 97.71 and admitted afterwards that he was far from his best. “There’s no doubt that Roland let me off the hook in a couple of vital legs,” he said. “Sometimes you have to win ‘ugly’ and that is what I did.”

Scholten started the night well with a convincing 8-4 victory against Ronnie Baxter but new PDC star Raymond Van Barneveld again produced the performance of the night.

The four-times BDO World Champion continued his dream start, beating Wayne Mardle 8-4 and he collected the £1,000 bonus for the highest check-out of the night.

His 164 finish was one of five ton-plus kills from Barney, who just doesn’t seem phased at all by his switch to ‘The Premiership of World Darts’. He donated his £1,000 prize to charity.

Taylor tops the table with six points, with Barneveld on four but ‘The Power’ has played one game more. The pair meet for the first time in front of 3,000 fans in Bournemouth on March 23rd…..what a night that will be!

Scholten also has four points, with Lloyd now on two, while Peter Manley, Wayne Mardle and Ronnie Baxter are all still looking for their first points of the competition.

The next stop is Aberdeen on Thursday.

Finally, best wishes for a speedy recovery from everyone at Unicorn to our very own World No.7 Kevin Painter.

‘The Artist’ had surgery on Wednesday to remove his gall bladder. The operation was a success and Painter hopes to be back playing in three weeks…..and we will be chatting to him on the Unicorn website next week….watch out for that!

By Stuart Pyke