Nine legs in a row in Brisbane
Pusey started the better of the two. He was in front inside the opening exchanges, and then he stopped winning legs altogether. Smith reeled off the remainder of the match to close it out 10-2 in a best-of-19, finishing with an 87.28 average against Pusey’s 74.32 — a gap of almost 13 points per three darts.
It was the same pattern Smith had shown an hour earlier. He trailed Jonny Tata early in the first semi-final before winning five legs on the bounce, and the averages there told a far tighter story: 87.03 to Tata’s 85.24. Pusey had the more straightforward evening of the two finalists, beating the defending champion Simon Whitlock 8-4 with an 83.78 average.
| Match | Result | Averages |
|---|---|---|
| Semi-final | Raymond Smith beat Jonny Tata | 87.03 – 85.24 |
| Semi-final | Tim Pusey beat Simon Whitlock 8-4 | 83.78 – 78.34 |
| Final | Raymond Smith beat Tim Pusey 10-2 | 87.28 – 74.32 |
What the ANZ title is actually worth
The A$30,000 is the small part. When the PDC confirmed the qualification criteria for the expanded 2026 Grand Slam of Darts back in February, it set aside one of the additional places for the ANZ Premier League champion, alongside the winners of the PDC Asian Championship, the North American Championship and the PDC Nordic & Baltic Championship. That place had been sitting open on the list ever since. Smith has just filled it.
Our rundown of the Grand Slam of Darts qualifiers carried “ANZ Premier League champion — finals night, late October” as one of the unresolved routes into Wolverhampton. The field is finalised on Friday 6 November, when the Tour Card Holder Qualifier at the Mattioli Arena in Leicester tops the entry list up to 48, and the tournament itself runs 14–22 November at WV Active Aldersley for a £1,000,000 prize fund. Smith now goes into the 16 groups of three that open the expanded format, which means a guaranteed two round-robin matches on television rather than the single sudden-death tie a knockout draw would have given him.
Fourteen days after that, the second ticket comes due. The 2027 PDC World Darts Championship runs from 11 December to 3 January at Alexandra Palace, the first edition staged in the venue’s Great Hall, and Smith enters as one of the international qualifiers in the 128-player field. Full dates for both are on the 2026 season calendar.
Source: DartsNews and Łączy Nas Dart reports of Finals Night, Brisbane, 31 October 2026.
Whitlock’s defence never got going
Whitlock won the inaugural ANZ Premier League in 2025, and he beat Smith in that final. His second campaign looked nothing like it. He came out of the league phase in third without winning a single weekly title across the five nights in Australia and New Zealand, the only one of the four play-off qualifiers who failed to take a night.
Smith, by contrast, led the table. His second weekly win, in Auckland, made him the first of the field to lock up a Finals Night place, and he arrived in Brisbane as the man to beat rather than as the sentimental pick.
| Player | League finish | Weekly titles | Finals Night |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raymond Smith | 1st | 2 | Champion |
| Tim Pusey | 2nd | 2 | Runner-up |
| Simon Whitlock | 3rd | 0 | Semi-final |
| Jonny Tata | 4th | 1 | Semi-final |
The route that ignores the Order of Merit
None of the four men who walked into the Brisbane Entertainment Centre on Saturday had a World Championship place. That is what made it a one-night shootout rather than a prize-money exercise: the winner went to Alexandra Palace and the other three went home to find another way in.
It is worth sitting with how different that is from the race playing out in England. The 2027 qualification cut is being decided over a full season of Players Championship and European Tour prize money, with Tour Card holders a few thousand pounds apart and a handful of events left to move anyone. Smith did it in one match. The PDC’s international structure — PDC Asia, PDC Nordic & Baltic, PDC Americas, PDC Oceania and the national associations — fills roughly 48 of the 128 places and pays no attention to the World Championship Race at all. Our guide to how to qualify for the PDC World Championship sets out all five routes side by side.
He has been further than most qualifiers
Smith is not a novelty entrant. At the 2021/22 championship he came through to the last 16, beating Florian Hempel to get there, and then led Mervyn King 3-1 in sets before losing 4-3 — one of the better runs by an Oceania qualifier in the modern format, and the reason his name still carries weight in Australia.
That edition also produced a genuine first. Smith qualified alongside his son Ky, making them the first father and son to play in the same PDC World Darts Championship. Ky went out in the first round while his father kept going.
Australian darts has had a strong 2026 regardless of what happens in Wolverhampton. The Australian Darts Masters in August put eight local representatives against the World Series regulars, and the ANZ Premier League has now sent a second player to Ally Pally in two years of existence. For a tournament designed to give the region a televised ladder of its own, two editions and two players sent to Alexandra Palace is a reasonable return.
What happens next
Players Championships 33 and 34 at the Mattioli Arena on 4–5 November are the next ranking events, the Grand Slam field closes the day after on 6 November, and the PDC Nordic & Baltic Championship settles the last of the regional Grand Slam places on 8 November. Smith has nothing left to qualify for. He can spend the fortnight practising for a group stage instead.