‘I really feel for him’ – Wayne Mardle fears Premier League darts star’s nightmare could spiral into other events

‘I Really Feel for Him’ – Wayne Mardle Fears Premier League Darts Star’s Nightmare Could Spiral Into Other Events
Wayne Mardle has voiced genuine sympathy and serious concern for Josh Rock, warning that the world number seven’s winless Premier League campaign is beginning to take on a psychological dimension that could bleed beyond Thursday nights — and speaking from painful personal experience, the Sky Sports pundit has urged the Northern Irishman to confront the mental side of his crisis before it compounds further.

Rock suffered his seventh consecutive defeat in the 2026 Premier League in Dublin last Thursday, whitewashed by a rampant Gerwyn Price, who averaged over 103.66 and hit 47 per cent of his doubles in a routine win that limited his opponent to just four darts at double. It completed the most miserable sequence of results in Rock’s career — seven nights, zero points, seven defeats, including the ignominy of a 6-0 blanking on Irish soil in front of a crowd that had offered him little mercy all evening.

Mardle: It’s a Mental Game Now
Mardle, who knows better than most what it feels like to lose week after week on the Premier League stage — he finished bottom of the table in both of his first two Premier League campaigns and won the nickname of the competition’s unofficial last-place award — has been watching Rock’s plight with a mixture of sympathy and mounting anxiety.

Mardle suggested Rock may be putting too much pressure on himself when it comes to the weekly roadshow. “He has to get something going. It was another poor performance. There is a mental side to this now. I think I can say this with a little bit of authority — he is playing Thursdays. He is seeing Thursdays as something else. Why did he perform at the UK Open? Because he is not worried. He is worried about performing on a Thursday. He wants to put it right so you end up making a big mountain of it.”

The distinction Mardle draws — between how Rock performs in other events and how he performs in the Premier League — is significant. And it is backed up by the numbers. While Rock has been averaging in the high 70s and low 80s in the Premier League, he reached the semi-finals of the UK Open and the quarter-finals of the World Masters in the same period, playing to a level that looked entirely different.

“I agree with what Wayne Mardle said last week, that I was just worried about playing on Thursday nights, but I’m going to every other tournament doing what I know how to do,” Rock himself admitted ahead of his Dublin appearance — an extraordinary endorsement of Mardle’s diagnosis from the player himself.

Recognising It From His Own Career
What gives Mardle’s words particular weight is that he is not speaking abstractly. He is drawing on lived experience of how relentless Premier League losses can erode a player from the inside out.

“I’ve been there where you are losing game after game and sometimes you feel like you are not quite good enough,” Mardle admitted. “He isn’t there yet because he is a world-class operator. But each time you lose you have to wait a whole week to put it right. It’s easier said than done but I think Josh just needs to relax on a Thursday. He needs to try and play his game. It is ridiculous to say it but that is what he needs to do.”

That phrase — “each time you lose you have to wait a whole week to put it right” — captures the unique cruelty of the Premier League format. In a Players Championship or European Tour event, a bad performance can be immediately followed by another match, another chance to reset. In the Premier League, a player must carry a defeat home, live with it for seven days, then walk back into a sell-out arena and try to shake it off. When form is good, a week feels like nothing. When form is poor, it feels like an eternity.

The Fear That It Spreads
The specific concern Mardle has raised — that the Premier League nightmare could spiral into Rock’s performances elsewhere — is the most acute dimension of the issue. “The Premier League is not about winning early doors, it’s about feeling okay. If you feel okay after losing three weeks on the bounce, it’s alright. You can get away with it because you feel confident enough you are playing well enough. It’s like Stephen Bunting loses eight on the bounce last year — he wasn’t playing poorly, he then wins one. That will hurt Josh Rock because last week he didn’t get into the game because of Jonny Clayton,” Mardle said earlier in the campaign.

The inference is clear: Bunting’s losing streak last year was survivable because his underlying performances remained solid — he was playing well, just not converting. Rock’s early losses included some genuine nadir averages, culminating in a 79.34 against Van Gerwen in Antwerp — the seventh-lowest average in Premier League history. That is a different category of problem, and one that could compound.

Rock himself admitted at the European Darts Trophy in Göttingen: “I felt a lot of discomfort on stage. I was just trying too hard on stage. I haven’t been playing the best. I am just happy to get over the line and on to tomorrow.”

That language — discomfort, trying too hard — is the language of a player who has let Thursday nights get into his head in a way that is starting to seep outwards.

Rock’s Response: Defiance and Self-Awareness
To Rock’s credit, he has not retreated into denial. He has engaged with Mardle’s assessment, acknowledged it, and attempted to use it as a framework for understanding what is happening to him — even if the solution remains elusive.

“I’m not big on coping mechanisms, I’m not superstitious about anything. I just go up there and believe my ability will be better than theirs on the night. It’s not going to plan at the minute, but it will change.”

Rock has acknowledged that his form away from the Premier League remains encouraging. “From playing absolutely pathetic to producing a nine-darter from nowhere — I don’t think I would have reacted that way in a different venue, but because it was in Belfast, it was very, very sweet,” he said of his perfect leg at Night Four, which now stands as the emotional high point of a debut campaign that has produced little else to celebrate on the scoreboard.

Fellow Northern Irishman and World Cup-winning partner Daryl Gurney has also weighed in with typically forthright advice. “Sometimes Josh is just too nice. He needs to get into his own zone and think, ‘everyone’s here to beat me’, not the other way around,” Gurney told Tungsten Tales. Rock understood the point but explained that his intensity is not something he can simply switch on at will — something has to happen to trigger it.

What Mardle Saw Before It All Began
Perhaps the most ironic dimension of this story is that Mardle was one of Rock’s most enthusiastic pre-season advocates. Before a dart had been thrown in anger, he spoke glowingly of Rock’s suitability for the format. “Josh is one of those players that will relish it. He’s a fiery character and he seems to thrive on the competition. The Premier League is all that — it’s the big stage, it’s competition, it’s relentless,” Mardle said ahead of the season opener in Newcastle.

That confidence now sits in awkward contrast to a campaign that has unravelled in exactly the way Mardle now fears could compound. “I just feel like there is so much more to come from Josh Rock. He needs to concentrate on that,” he said. The sympathy is real. The urgency behind it is equally so.

Night Eight in Berlin on Thursday brings Rock up against Jonny Clayton — the league leader, and the man who handed Rock his opening Premier League defeat in Newcastle seven weeks ago. It is as difficult a fixture as could be drawn. But for a player whose crisis is rooted in psychology rather than ability, perhaps the mountain to climb now matters less than the mindset with which he attempts it.