Just like we can guarantee the Sun will rise and set each day, the certainty of Stephen Bunting bagging one of the two European Tour qualifiers on offer and chucking some decent arrows in the Pro Tours seems almost as accurate.

Once again, the Bullet headed off for three days of arrows, this time in Wigan.

Players Championship number nine got off to a pretty good start – a very Bunting like 95.21 average in defeating Jules van Dongen 6-2 in his opening match of the weekend.

However, Stephen dipped a little below that figure in his second round match against Mike De Decker and the Belgian fully capitalised and grabbed victory.

Day two, and it was one step further for the Liverpudlian. Without being in top gear, Bunting managed to get the better of a below par Lewy Williams in round one.

The former Lakeside Champion then banged in a superb 104.78 average to defeat a well performing Adam Smith-Neale 6-3.

And despite an extremely good display in the board final against Jose De Sousa, it was the Portuguese who prevailed to halt Stephen’s progress.

Now when it comes to the brace of Euro Tour qualifiers, it’s usually – and quite literally – a hit and a miss. This day was no different.

Trips to Sindelfingen and Trier were on offer – Bunting will be heading to the latter.

A fine performance from Keegan Brown in the first qualifier meant a weekend off at the end of May for the St Helens resident as the Isle of Wight man ran out a 6-4 winner despite a valiant effort from Stephen.

Not to be perturbed, it was a quick turnaround and two wins over Scott Waites and Robert Owen with healthy averages well into the 90’s meant fans in the Trier Arena will get to see The Bullet at the end of June.

Afterwards, Stephen said: “It seems to always happen! I qualify for one Euro Event and not the other! Quite frustrating but fair play to Keegan [Brown], he played incredibly well against me and deserved to win.

“Apart from the game against Lewy [Williams] on Sunday, I feel that my game was there and I played very well. Could probably do with tightening up on the doubles but I’m scoring fine and felt good all weekend.

“I will just keep practicing in between events and am very confident of picking up a title very soon.”