Good afternoon sports fans and welcome to our mid-season
powerless rankings, where we rank the ten worst teams in
BUAFL at the moment. If your team is unfortunate enough to find yourselves on
our rankings, don’t blame us! It’s not our fault you suck!
Also at the end of the season we will be returning with our “never
managed to find any power” rankings!
Let’s get onto the list.
10. Manchester
Tyrants (0-4)
PS: 18 PC: 78 Opp
record: 12-5-1
The bottom team in the Northern Conference are only the
number 10 team on our list. Despite being around for a few years, the Tyrants
find themselves winless in the ’11 season with losses including a 6-4 loss to
new boys Bradford and a 46-8 loss to Bangor who they beat 27-8 last year.
Looking at last year’s results compared to this year, it
seems that the Tyrants may have lost some fire power on their offence. The most
they have scored in a game so far is 8 points...If the Tyrants want to match
last year’s 4-4 record they’ll need to win their remaining fixtures,
unfortunately two of the teams left are the Sheffield Sabres and Hallam
Warriors.
9. Coventry Jets
(0-4)
PS: 10 PC: 146 Opp
record: 13-5
Whoever does the league schedule does not like Coventry.
Their fixtures so far have been Leeds Celtics, Loughborough Aces, Birmingham
Lions and Leicester Longhorns. For a team which supposedly has a number of
players that have played for various teams in the BAFANL senior and junior
leagues, the Jets have only managed to muster up a paltry 10 points on offence.
Fortunately for the Jets they may be able to do two things
that their senior team were unable to do this season. Firstly that’s complete a
season and secondly looking at their schedule they have the opportunity to win
at least one game. No doubt they’ll be hoping their first victory comes in the
varsity matchup against Warwick Wolves after narrowly losing 13-6 last year.
8. UWS Pyros (0-3)
PS: 21 PC: 126 Opp
record: 7-4
Had their contest against Teesside gone ahead, no doubt the
number 7 and 8 rankings would be different in our list. Unfortunately it was
postponed so UWS find themselves at number 8. UWS game against Edinburgh
Predators was also called off according to BUAFL.
In the 3 games they have been able to play, UWS has lost by
4, 11 and 90 respectively. No doubt everyone involved in the team will be
hoping that this increasing deficit doesn’t continue when they go against
Sunderland after the winter break. Looking at BUAFL.net I’m sure it has to be a
mistake when it says they face Stirling another two times?
7. Teesside Cougars(0-4)
PS: 46 PC: 170 Opp
record: 10-6
The bottom team from what many consider the worst conference
are only placed at number 7? Surely this is a mistake? No it is not, because
unlike teams down south Teesside are actually finding their way into the
endzone with 46 points scored so far (even if 26 points did come against
Durham).
Apart from their game against Newcastle, the Cougars have
actually managed to do something in their other fixtures, losing two by less
than double digit scores. Unfortunately for Teesside three of their four
remaining fixtures feature teams who are bidding for a playoff spot, the other
fixture is against the team above them.
6. Huddersfield
Hawks(0-3)
PS: 0 PC: 161 Opp
record: 12-1
I imagine the selection of Huddersfield at number six my
raise a few eyebrows, but come on, have you seen their schedule so far? After
Coventry, Huddersfield has definitely had the hardest schedule of all the teams
on this list with fixtures against Hallam, Sheffield and Hull (the top three
teams in the Northern Conference if you didn’t know).The 105-0 loss to Hallam
is definitely the lowest this point this team could’ve reached.
Despite managing one win last season, Huddersfield may find
themselves going winless this season with Bangor, Bradford, Liverpool, Celtics
and Lancaster left on the schedule. If Huddersfield are going to win though
their offence will need to start contributing after scoring 0 points so far,
hell if they even had one scoring drive against Hull then they could’ve
possibly won the game (Hawks lost 6-0).
5. Tarannau
Aberystwyth (0-4)
PS: 6 PC: 97 Opp
record: 11-5
Tarannau strike fear into a few people, dyslexics and people
taking part in spelling bees mainly (Ed: don’t give up your day job…) I doubt they strike fear into any of their
opponents in BUAFL. Despite having the hardest to spell name in BUAFL, there
aren’t many pros for Tarannau this season. Being the first victims to the
Bangor turnaround, it’s been an uphill struggle since then with losses to UWE,
Swansea and Bath Killer Bees.
Looking at the fixtures, Aber can expect tough matchups
against Cardiff and the Barracuda if they regain their playoff form from last
year, but with Bath Spa and a re-match with Bangor (is this correct?) Aber may
have the opportunity for revenge and possibly finish 2-6/3-5 when the season
ends. Not bad for the worst team in Wales at the moment.
4. Gloucester
Gladiators (0-3)
PS: 14 PC: 139 Opp
record: 5-6
According to BUAFL.net Gloucester are above Aber, but this
is only due to the fact that Tarannau have played more games at this point in
the season. Somehow the Gladiators have only managed to score in one game which
is pretty bad for their offence, but then you look at their scores and see that
their defence hasn’t held a team to less than 35 points...
If the second year team are trying to improve on their 1-6-1
record from last season then they are going about it all the wrong way.
Fortunately they do have two potential victories on their schedule, the first
against Varsity rivals Worcester, then another against new boys the Westminster
Dragons. If the Gladiators are unable to win either of those games then don’t
be surprised if they are lower when we re-visit these rankings at the end of
season.
3. Worcester Royals
(0-4)
PS: 28 PC: 155 Opp
record: 10-6
The majority of you wouldn’t believe me if I told you
Worcester have won two games in their history (Ed: It’s true, they have!) Unfortunately
one was their associate matchup against BNU and the other was their Varsity
match against Gloucester when the Gladiators were an associate team.
So far this season the Royals have squared off against two
rookie teams (DMU and Northampton), Reading and Lincoln. For a third year team most people
would’ve expected them to get off to a 2-2 start with these fixtures, but
that’s not the case. With a QB rotation for every play on offence (I’m not
kidding) and poor tackling on defence it’s not hard to see why the Royals
continue to remain winless in BUAFL.
With NTU, Staffordshire, Bath Spa and Gloucester I wouldn’t
be surprised to see Worcester remain winless for another season.
2. Surrey Stingers
(0-4)
PS: 14 PC: 148 Opp
record: 7-11
Surrey would have probably won the number one spot if it hadn’t
been for the forfeit incident by our number one team. So far Surrey have faced
only one team with a winning record, but the Stingers have only managed to
score in two games and haven’t held their opposition to less than 25 points.
The down side to Surrey completing the first half of their
fixtures is the fact that their fixtures get so much harder from now on. 3 of
their next 4 opponents are still unbeaten (Northampton, Pompey and Southampton)
and their other remaining fixture is against the DW kings from down south, BNU.
Don’t be surprised if Surrey forfeit a game or two to steal
the top spot in our powerless rankings at the end of the season.
1. Anglia Ruskin
Phantoms (0-5)
PS: 20 PC 165 Opp
record: 15-7
Who’d have thought the bottom two teams would come from down
south?
This decision was an easy choice after Anglia Ruskin was
unable to fulfil their fixture against the Stags last weekend! At least with
the fixture cancelled they only lost 1-0 instead of 50 odd – 0. Despite taking
a year out, the Phantoms have still been around since 2003 so you wouldn’t
expect this to happen to an experienced team.
Checking this team’swebsite I saw that they won the ARU
Sports team of the year in 2010. How bad are the other teams at ARU?
That’s it for our rankings for 2011! We wish everyone a
happy Christmas and hope you all have a new year! We will see you on January 30th
when we return with our BUAFL top 25 rankings!
Surrey are in it deep. Take out Northampton who have an easy schedule. Id be surprised if the other 3 teams dont top 60 points each.
ReplyDeleteLincoln a rookie team? you mad?
ReplyDeleteThat was an unfortunate mistake by our editor. The original copy points out Worcesters first four fixtures not who their rookie opponents were.
ReplyDelete