Round 6 Rewound

The Love Sparkles (1817) vs Shire Scourers (1895)

The marketing department at the Shire Scorers made a big plan with their rebrand this year. Gone are the constant reminders of who won the 2016 championship. But with an aim to claim the fame of New Zealand, the team pushed forward with a new name. The heads in marketing will be sure glad the boys on the field got the job done against the other New Zealand team, to help validate this team as the team for all kiwis.

The game was eerily close. Both teams had six centurions and similar centuries:

Both teams can be proud of the effort in a tightly fought contest, with plenty of stars lighting up the park. The Scourers were just too good, with Yeo (90), Weller (77), Matera (85) and Langdon (120) all huge at the clutch in the last game of the round. A close loss for the Sparkles unfortunately leaves them at 2-4. However, they are only one game out of the eight and play sixth place next week in a match with huge ramifications.

Solomon’s Soldiers (1543) vs Defenestrators (2019)

So that’s how Paul responds after a loss! He goes out and scores the highest score of the year. Only the second to pass the great 2000 mark, after Nathan last week, this man has coached his team to the top score of the round in five out of the six weeks! Full respect.

What went right for Paul (well, more right than usual)? Nine hundreds. That’s a lot of hundreds! Incredibly, four of them are from West Coast players with Hurn (124), Gaff (120), Shuey (111) and Darling (101) all hitting triple figures. As if I wasn’t jealous enough of this list already.

As for the soldiers, there weren’t a lot of positives. But if I only focus on the Friday, things look great. Cripps scored a big 112 and new recruit Marcus Bontempelli strutted his stuff with a debut 122 as a soldier. I just found it fitting that the rebuilding soldiers got the most joy this week from watching the bulldogs play Carlton on a Friday night.

Puttanesca Chiefs (1810) vs The Redshins (1645)

The Puttanesca Chiefs have the best defender in the land (Rory Laird, averaging 117), the second best midfielder in the land (Jack Macrae, averaging 121.8) and the second best ruckman in the land (Brodie Grundy, averaging 117.2). They just comfortably beat a team that other final aspirants couldn’t deal with. They have more players in team of the week than anyone else. They sit on top of the ladder. I have seen no evidence to bump them from second favouritism for the flag, for as long as they are in this form. Credit to Coach Buscumb for keeping the hunger alive. All this is happening with two of the worst shots for goal on his list in Joe Daniher (7.9) and Jack Billings (4.11).

The Redshins have now dropped a couple in a row. The Michael Walters injury hurts a lot as he is a dynamic playmaker for them. The Redshins are up against the Bailout Plan next week and will be hoping to address the slide, although they posted a lower score than Luke’s mob and so will want to lift the intensity.

Such is “Fyfe” (1939) vs The Bailout Plan (1762)

Remember back two weeks when Such is “Fyfe” scored 1695 and lost to MaherShalalHashBaz? Seems a long time ago now. Two big scores, two big wins and Such is “Fyfe” look like they can beat anyone. Certainly they were too good for the Bailout Plan this week. Paul Seedsman (116) will be one of the top four defenders this year. Jared Polec (156) posted what I would call a staggering score, but he did get three Dangergawn votes recently too. Brett Deledio (116) is back in form. The fact he is actually playing really helps. All these improvements, combined with the consistency of Pendlebury (125), Selwood (98) and Duncan (105) mean that Nathan is now hosting a formidable team that, on form, could easily knock off the Roughencks next week. Will this be a historic first for our league? A team starting on 0-4 and making the finals. Time will tell, but with Nathan only one win out of the eight, he could get to the top six as soon as next week.

Things have certainly improved for the Bailout Plan. Improved from stinky performances to honourable losses. Most impressively, management seemed to have unearthed an absolute draft bargain in Harry Morrison (108). Of course, another loss hurts, but at least the scores are not horrible, and with eight hundreds in the team, there is certainly a lot more to enjoy when compared to five weeks ago.

Rico’s Roughnecks (1943) vs MaherShalalHashBaz (1747)

After a last-gasp win in the last minute of the last game last round, my boys were in the frame of mind of coming last. The Roughecks were far too strong and switched on, right from Friday night when Zac Fisher (109) torched Aaron Mullett (35). It was never close after that.

I also must salute top Roughnecks Adam Treloar (147) and Tim Taranto (100). Both of these men I have criminally underrated. But you didn’t have to rub it in my face like that!

Whose to blame for my low woes? Well, it’s not my top end talent. My stars produced quite well and I had seven centurions to Adam’s eight. But look at the table below and you can see who deserves the blame.

Yeah, the bottom end of my team is shocking. That’s an average of 51. Which means there are a bunch of players scoring less than 50. The consistency of the Roughnecks team is something I can try to inspire my troops to attain. Their scores over the last four weeks show that something special is brewing. In my camp, too many of my youngsters are following the example of vice-captain Dayne Zorko (43) who has average of 66.5. Optimistically, I should be able to just pick up seven new players from the waiver wire who can at least score more than 50. Until then, people are just going to assume MaherShalalHashBaz is roughly translated “extremely unequal division of labour”.