Sky Sports pundit Stuart Pyke joked that Luke Littler was 'rubbish' after he failed with a nine-darter attempt during his victory over Stephen Bunting. The two rivals met in the Premier League as it returned to Newcastle on Thursday night, with The Nuke cruising to a dominant win. He won all six legs against Bunting, taking just 10 minutes to wrap up the match and progress to the next round.

Littler almost got off to a dream start, with the teenager going agonisingly close to a nine-dart finish in the very first leg. He landed six perfect arrows before missing with his seventh, prompting jeers from the crowd. The reigning world champion took it all in his stride, even joining in with the fans.

It would have been Littler's second nine-darter of the Premier League campaign, having achieved the feat en route to victory in Cardiff last week. Pyke was running the rule over proceedings in Newcastle and could hardly believe his eyes when the sixth dart landed.

"Surely not again, a nine-darter in the Cardiff final," he said, before Littler went slightly too high with his seventh dart. Pyke then joked: "Rubbish!" The comment was obviously made in jest, with the Sky Sports pundit hailing Littler immediately afterwards.

He added: "Wow, he is something else, isn't he? This young man, week after week, tournament after tournament. He just lights it up."

Littler was six points clear at the top of the Premier League table ahead of his match against Bunting, with three nightly wins to his name. He is the clear favourite to defend the title he won last year, having already pulled clear of his closest rivals.

Bunting, meanwhile, has endured a nightmare campaign with zero points from the opening eight nights. Last week, he took to social media to express his feelings after losing at the hands of Chris Dobey for his seventh straight defeat.

"Absolutely gutted. So sorry to all who support me," wrote Bunting. "Practiced so well tonight and unfortunately it just didn’t happen on the stage. I’ll keep giving it my all guys and keep believing."

Luke Humphries recently offered an honest verdict on Bunting's struggles, telling talkSPORT: "We’re really close friends, so when things aren’t going right he’s going to come for me for a bit of advice.

"His manager said: 'Can you have a word with Stephen and try and give him a bit of encouragement?', which I did. I said to him that I don’t know if the walk on song is affecting him a little bit at the start.

"Nathan [Aspinall] had this and told me the buzz is so high that for the first couple of legs it’s hard to come down from. When you’ve got that massive buzz, you’ve got the first two legs where you are waiting to come down a little bit."