Round 2 Rewound

Rico’s Roughnecks (1742) vs Stranger Danger (1996)

At the start of the week, I had this pegged as game of the round. As it turns out, Mark’s boys were far too strong, all over the park. Check out these winnings:

• Defence 485 to 464

• Midfield 793 to 742

• Ruck 123 to 121

• Forward 509 to 415

• Utility 86 to 17

Adam must have realised he was having one of those weeks when Martin scored 121 and still got outscored by his opposite number. Needless to say, Mark’s odds for the championship are shortening by the round. His list is actually very even everywhere (as opposed to midfield top heavy like yours truly). On the other hand, Rico’s Roughnecks are zero and two, with another tough match up to come versus the reigning premier. He will certainly want to see a bit more fight from his troops. Adam said there was lots of finger pointing going on at Rico’s Roughnecks, but I would like to point the finger squarely at Dan Hannebery, after failing to pass 80 in both matches so far. If he fails to post a triple next week, I will officially dub him Has-Been Hanners. At the other end of the scale, credit to the recruiters of both clubs. Christian Salem got 127 and Clayton Oliver got 135. Wow!

Champs16 (1827) vs The Redshins (1530)

This game went as expected. Almost exactly as expected. A comfortable win to the premiers. Champs16 put in a reasonably strong performance – 1827 was about par for the weekend. Coach Nelson would be particularly happy with his two key Sydney forwards – Reid and Franklin – cracking the ton. Yeo has also posted two high scores in a row, which either means that next week will be borderline-minus-score low or that Yeo has taken the next step as a player. As for the Redshins, they aren’t as bad as this score suggests. Their key Sydney forward in Tippett did not crack the ton, but cracked some other body part on the way to a paltry 15. Then Josh Jenkins got a punctured lung/ winded and only scored 2. The Red shins will be back, but when you post two 100s to five, expect to lose more than you win.

Defenestrators (1850) vs In Gore WE Trust (1575)

This was a good game to track. Not for closeness of score, but for subtle, intriguing battles. As Mark pointed out, the Defenestrators elected not to play a ruckman – but if you added Campbell’s score to the Defenestrator’s total, they would’ve scored 1944, a much more true reflection of the strength of the squad and ease of the win. PaulZ is still outright favourite for premiership coach. However, we already knew that. What I enjoyed watching was the players play against their old teams, specifically the players they were traded for. Looking at that, we saw:

All in all, a good win to the premiership favourite. Good scores across the board with 10 scores of 90+ from 21 players. They are going so strong that Kenney tried to play a shocker, but avoided it at the last minute. As for In Gore WE Trust, well, at least they have Gore.

Such is Fyfe (1791) vs General Soreness (2024)

For me, this was the most exciting game of the round to watch. It was tit for tat all weekend, right from the Thursday game. Pendlebury scores 110; Hoskin-Elliot scores 124. Jong scores 114, Lloyd scores 113. Duncan scores 106, Higgins scores 119. Jones scores 100, Tyson scores 146. In the end, General Soreness had too much on the board, that even the swarm of Dockers that Nathan had at his disposal could not reign it in. I did feel for Nathan during that game. His beloved Dockers smashed and his unbeaten dream team run dashed. But, then I remembered that Such is Fyfe posted a record score last week and I stopped feeling sorry for them. However, this game was a huge triumph for the Soreness after a terrible 2016 campaign and a loss last week. Highlights aplenty including

• The highest scorer of the round – Sloane 152

• The second highest scorer of the round – Tyson 146

• 3, 2, 1 in Dangergawn medal

• Rocky being Rocky

• A massive eight hundreds, including four huge ones in the “weak” midfield

• The highest ever score for General Soreness

• A win

What we learned from this game is that General Soreness look primed for a big year. To hit 2000 points minus Todd Goldstein is huge. We also learned that you should always have playing emergencies in case of a playing emergency. But this was a good result for the league – if Dad lost, we would have 5 on 0-2 and 5 on 2-0.

MaherShalalHashBaz (1784) vs The Bailout Plan (1742)

And then we get to my game. Let’s be honest. I was lucky to win in the end. I thought I always had it in the bag, but my sub-par demons and his on-fire power players really made a close thing of it. I am embarrassed by the effort of most of my team. My supposedly elite squad could only manage four hundreds. My team has not had that few hundreds in a match since Round 14, last year – and that was a bye round. However, as chairman of selectors I take some of the blame for choosing not to start Sam Gibson, who responded with a hundred of his own. It’s not all doom and gloom though – scores fluctuate in this league and I would be confident of a bounce back next week. Then again, Steven was hit hard and Lewis hit someone hard and so will not be a part of that fixture. Sigh – at least it looks like I could have two Dangergawn medallists in the club. Zach Merrett is, at this stage, having a better season than last year. 6 votes from 2 games. Focussing on him keeps me happy.

The Bailout Plan looked much stronger, mostly due to the fact they fielded 21 players instead of 18. Who knows how good they will be if they field a whole team? They had seven magnificent hundreds and it would have been eight if Jesse Hogan hadn’t annoyed Luke in some unknown way and avoided selection. Seriously, he must have killed Luke’s guinea pig, because he wasn’t even an emergency.  Luke was one player shy of a stunning upset and it just goes to show, you shouldn’t underestimate anyone. Or at least not Luke. You can underestimate Alex all you like for the next two years.

Speaking of Luke and Alex, I can confidently say there is enough strength in the Bailout Plan to notch their maiden 2017 win next week.