Three games are taking place today, here's a look at our predictions!
Anglia Ruskin Phantoms @ Essex Blades (17.00)
If there was a list of teams you would want to play midweek before your big end of season, potentially playoff deciding game, the ARU Phantoms would be near the top of it.
Essex will be looking to get ahead early and dominate the game so they can rest their starters in what is a small squad before their big game against Brighton at the weekend.
ARU have shown little improvement after forfeiting games last year and struggling throughout this season to even get points on the board whilst conceding just under 200 points for the season.
Blades to win by 5 scores
KCL Regents @ Westminster Dragons (14.00)
Kings are another SEC team with an easy(ish) midweek game before a big playoff deciding game and will be hoping for a similar type of game as Essex will. They will be raring to go after the upset over Kent last weekend and should man handle the SEC new boys.
Westminster have shown potential to establish themselves in the league with a win over TVC bottom feeders Surrey, but that victory must seem a long time ago.
KCL to win by two scores
Northumbria Mustangs @ Durham Saints (14.00)
Northumbria to win by 3 scores
Westminster were unfortunately unable to field a team today and forfeited the game. KCL win 1-0
ReplyDeleteDurham have cancelled today's game
ReplyDeleteSo atleast 2 of 3 games being played mid week have had to be cancelled. Maybe now BUAFL will see that haphazardly piling in mid week games at the end of the season doesn't work. They need to push more games in before Xmas and leave at least 1, ideally 2, weekends free for rescheduling games come the end of the season. While it's tough playing 6 weekends straight with an inexperienced team in November/December (I did it in my first year) it's a damn lot easier than playing 3 games in 8 days.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely agree, you can't be expected to play all your games without weather(or sadly it seems organisational) problems most years ones and playing 6 before christmas is clearly the most logical solution. Last year we had one game played before the break it needs to be changed
ReplyDeletethe only issue i have with playing 6 games before x mas is the matters of Subs. now i know many of you are going to say oh it dont matter you was going to pay them anyways. but lets say a team goes 2-4 before xmas. the players would be expected to pay the subs for the next term knowing they have two games with little hope of play off football. i assure you that will produce a whole lot more problems with teams unable to field players etc
ReplyDeleteAnother issue is one we can't do anything about - the British weather. Last season, we had a load of snow in November, this year it was early February.
ReplyDeleteIf the league moved to a 6-2 or even a 5-3 schedule it would mean a lot of games in late November / early December, as the season is probably at the earliest possible start point in terms of getting rookie players safely trained up.
Unfortunately squeezing in more games before Xmas means that some teams will have a maximum of 3 weeks to try to get guys ready to play from a standing start and I'm not sure how safe that would be? We have to face facts and live with the idea that weather (in some form) will always intervene and plan accordingly. I wouldn't want to see the season run on longer as it impinges upon many teams Senior programmes and any extension would make things worse. If all teams show a degree of flexibility and good will most games could be played. As for the ones that can't, how about some sort of "pools panel"?
ReplyDelete