Mid-season Powerless Rankings

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 30^th when we return with our BUAFL top 25 rankings!