SWAC predictions and a tricky one with the Cardiff game...
Exeter Demons @ Bath Killer Bees
It’s play offs or bust for the Demons and Killer Bees. If the Demons win then they go to the post season as the number 2 team in SWAC, if they lose they don’t even make the Trophy competition (assuming Cardiff win their double header). Killer Bees win they go to the Trophy competition if they lose they are done.
The Demons defence is beginning to look a decent outfit. Perhaps the poor field position their special teams have been putting them in has made them look worse than they really are, or is it just good coaching getting the best out of an improving group. They are now tough to score on and the Bees running game will again be in the spot light.
The Exeter “Kirby” single wing offense should not be a surprise anymore, but that does not mean it is easy to stop. They are consistently getting 2-3 scores a game regardless of who the defence is.
Exeter by 1-2 scores (this will probably mean they will lose, given I have always tipped them to lose before!!)
Tarannau / Gloucester Gladiators @ Cardiff Cobras
Well who thought this one up? Gloucester can’t (or is that won’t) play mid week, so BUAFLs solution is to make Cardiff play two teams on the same day. Ok two halves of football but against different teams, guess the team that goes second has a big advantage!
Lets face it this is going to be about 1 lucky break and hanging on in there. It’s a good job Cardiff aren’t set up to grind teams down and win tight battles over 4 quarters…
The Glads will be coming off a morale boosting win in London and Aber from a narrow OT loss to Bangor, while Cardiff will be downbeat from their man handling by UWE. When this nonsense was agreed it looked like Cardiff would steam roller two poor and disheartened teams, it turns out this will be tough on Cardiff. I expect coach Browning will pick the Cobras up and finish the regular season with two remarkable wins.
Cobras to win each half by 1 score .
Are Cardiff allowed to play two competitive games back to back in one day, from an insurance perspective, this sound dangerous.. As an Underwriter, i would have declined this one the moment it appeared in my inbox..
ReplyDeleteThey are not playing two full games they are playing 2 15 minutes quarters agaisnt each team. This level of play would be ok 2 years ago the only diffeence being one team will be fresh at the start of the second fixture while the home team will have played a half of football. However two years ago that could be the case say if you had an extended warm up for one team and not the other. I am sure BUAFL will have checked the insurance position and I would suggest that is not the issue. Fairness is another thing altogether........
DeleteI see your point, Although as a young professional i would be terrified of the risk and run and hide behind my desk or Slap you with an extra "Heart Attack Premium" as we say and a Gigantuan excess (#5000 am thinking) with a dollop of exclusions... (e.g what if One/Both games are tied at their FT, Also with one team fully warmed up from a half of football and the other (poorer team not) this is a recipe for injuries, (Serious or Not))...
DeleteSlightly unfair (Kind Here) that the league should make exceptions for one team of this standard, thus allowing them to be fresher for post season, having played less hours of football.. But the Fullernator's word is law..
Could not agree more with #InsUnderwriter here. Once again, poor organisation from BUAFL.
DeleteThe tied issue is an interesting one, I am not sure what the thinking is for these double headers I think there are more being arranged in other parts of the country. I assume it is an attempt to get games decided on the field rather than off it. But imho at the reduction of safety, which is sad but not unprecedented in BUAFL.
DeleteDouble headers are normal and quite common no insurance problems and in fact are useful as all teams get the advantage of having the same referees and ambulance crew.
Delete'The advantage' of the same reffing crew must be financial only - there are many potential disadvantages of having the same crew responsible for the outcome of three games.
DeleteTarannau get to watch a half of Cardiff Cobras, and get to watch how they play and what they do, i wouldn't predict a win for Cardiff over Tarannau.
ReplyDeleteThe Tarannau game is first, then the Glads.
DeleteTarannau can't beat Cardiff unless Cardiff didn't turn up!
DeleteWhat a crock of shit for all teams involved. Aber travels 6 hours to play 24 minutes of football. Cardiff plays two half-games, losing either of which could put them out of playoff football. If Exeter's results had been called at halftime in any of their past three games, they would not be in a position to compete for the national title. I thought March Madness only applied to basketball... whoever thought this was a good way to resolve the issue of unplayed games is a fool. I fool, I tells ya.
ReplyDeleteFar too many people speaking sense in this post today!
Deleteits 30 minutes of football.... and if they didn't like it then they should have sorted a reserve pitch so that they wouldn't have had to reschedule there game. Cardiff will play 60 minutes of football.
DeleteHave the quarters been re-jigged to 15 minutes each, then? And you're right, entirely: if they don't like it, Cardiff should have arranged the game in their earlier shared bye week with Gloucester, and not fannied about a couple of weeks ago, declaring their pitch unplayable then maybe playable then playable on Saturday evening. This is all being done because someone somewhere thinks Cardiff has a shot at post-season football, so everyone else is being made to cater to their needs and to compensate for their lack of gameday management.
Deletewe not getting a prediction for the bulldogs v.s the royals???
ReplyDeleteDoes there really need to be a prediction? pretty sure everybody knows the Royals will lose.
DeleteIt will be included with the MAC predictions I'd imagine as it is listed as MAC/SWAC on Buafl.net
DeleteI predict some more excellent pictures from Worcester's photographer and hopefully another one worthy of becoming a meme.
DeleteThe best player on the Royals team by far is the photographer
Deletedid Gloucester really refuse to play in the midweek slot? what about back in week 2 when both teams had a bye? Did Cardiff try to re-host the match then? Did Gloucester refuse?
ReplyDeleteIt seems likely to me that Gloucester are the problem here - if they'd agreed to play the match when they should have, it would have been settled a long time ago, and Cardiff would now only need to play Aber in a full game (far fairer and more meaningful for both teams), and Gloucester could maybe play Swansea this weekend instead, thus ticking off one of their other two remaining fixtures.
Why didn't the league demand that the teams both agree to play in the week 11 wednesday slot or risk forfeit?
Gloucester is built up of only 6 sports degree students, meaning all other players have lectures mid week because they don't get wednesdays off. Why should they play Cardiff with only a few players? Not right.
DeleteIt was Cardiff's fault in the first place, for not supplying a pitch for the first game of the season. They had the fixtures since the summer and should of been able to get a pitch ready.
Bye weeks are given, for teams to have a week off. Why should Gloucester give up a bye week, to play a game that should of been played at the start of the season.
Back off and stop trying to organise something you have no idea about.
Becasue that is the primary reason for bye weeks, that is to catch up with postponed games.
Delete"Gloucester is built up of only 6 sports degree students" - that's 10% maybe? and you think that most other teams are made up of students doing sports degrees? I guess some, Loughborough perhaps, will have a high(er) percentage, but the reality is that players in all programs are pulled from all across the institutions. I'd have thought 10% is probably no less than normal, and could well be pretty high given that most of the traditional Universities tend to be inclined towards more academic subjects.
ReplyDelete"It was Cardiff's fault in the first place" undoubtedly - although probably not the actual team's fault. The pitch was (I believe) flooded. I'm quite sure nobody from Cardiff would shift the blame away from the University. Pitches get flooded, or buried under snow and ice - it happens. (quite a lot this season around the country as it turns out)
"Bye weeks are given, for teams to have a week off." Now seriously, that's where you're getting things very very wrong. Bye weeks are to enable you to play catchup. It's not like either team had a backlog of games (such has occurred at the end of the season), the bye week was week 2 for both teams, and the original match was week 1. Frankly, playing in week 2 instead should have been a no-brainer. Interesting to see that you're admitting that Gloucester DID in fact refuse to play in both the available bye week, and the wednesday fixture (which was scheduled as a potential catchup at the start of the season)
The League's original announcement of dates was as follows:-
"Fixture dates: Week One (Nov 6th), Two (13th), Three (20th), Four (27th), Five (Dec 4th), Six (11th), Seven (Jan 29th), Eight (Feb 4th or 5th), Nine (12th), Ten (19th) Eleven (22nd - Wed), Twelve (29th).
Most teams have room for games to slide to Week Six or Seven if hit by weather in first part of the year as few games are scheduled then. Week Eleven (midweek) is the last resort."
As it turned out, although Gloucester had a week 7 bye to "slide" a game into, Cardiff did not (with their 2nd bye week being week 5), so the minute Gloucester refused to play in the one bye week they had that matched up (week 2), they essentially accepted the need to use the "last resort" slot of week 11. While the original postponement was Cardiff's fault, only Gloucester are to blame for the current mess.
So please, sort your own house out and understand the concept of a bye week in regulation play BEFORE trying to shove it back at me.
1st point - Our SU said we couldn't play a mid week game, not the team.
ReplyDelete2nd point - Yeah okay, you're right in saying its not Cardiff's fault, i take that one back.
3rd point - BUAFL not once asked us if we could play in the BYE week, by the time BUAFL had got round to organising, the BYE week had already gone.
odd that those excuses are not the excuses you used in your earlier post. Trying to backtrack so it doesn't sound like Gloucester were intentionally awkward in refusing to rearrange the fixture in the hope they got it awarded?
Deletere your 3rd point - are you honestly telling me that rather than be proactive in trying to get the game played in the only bye week both teams knew they had, both teams simply sat back and waited for Fuller to change their nappies and sort it out? How many on your team are intelligent enough to be studying degrees? surely you could have worked out the obvious solution for yourselves? Nah, your original admittance that Gloucester refused to play simply because they wanted a week with their feet up (or indeed hoped to be gifted the win) seems far more likely.
Why wouldn't your SU allow you to play a midweek match? While American Football is not BUCS, a quick trawl of the BUCS site suggests that Gloucester Uni participate in a number of BUCS sports that have fixtures on wednesday afternoons (including evidence that sport was played on the very afternoon in question). Why would your SU let every other sport play but not you guys?
DeletePerhaps both teams were unaware of the matching bye week until it was too late to arrange the game. If Cardiff were aware then why did they not suggest it when they discovered they could not provide a pitch in week 1. Surely that would be the sensible thing to do? Not for Gloucester to take the blame because a team which has been in the league for 25 years failed to mention they could easily arrange the game for the following week.
DeleteThere was no refusal to play in week 2. Playing in week 2 was never discussed because it was not made aware it could even be an option. If a team as reputable as the Cobras does not mention it could rearrange the game then it could be assumed they had a reason for not mentioning it, could it not?
Were Cardiff's pitches available in week 2 rather then week 1? If so were they not made aware sooner rather then a phone call late friday evening to say to Gloucester that they do not have a pitch available and Cardiff's first suggestion was if they could provide a pitch.
That is not much notice to try and arrange a pitch especially in a uni where all other sports take priority over AF even korfball; seriously what is that sport?
Perhaps both teams could have done more to try and arrange the game but as an experienced team in the league why was it so hard for Cardiff to take the initiative and approach a new team about the possibility of week 2 if they knew about it back then.
I think perhaps both teams needed to take the initiative - you both had the same copies of the league schedules, and it's plain to see on there even now that both teams had a bye. I have no idea if Cardiff did (or tried to), but you've made it clear that Gloucester did not (preferring to wait for the League instead).
DeleteThat still doesn't get away from your (admitted) refusal to play on the wednesday fixture. The SU excuse doesn't really cut it in light of the BUCS program.
Gloucester have already pointed out why they couldn't play on a Wednesday. Have you not read their point? They said that due to people have lectures on Wednesday, it was not right to travel to Cardiff with 6 players. That is a straight up no, in my books. Teams in the BUCS, have no lectures on Wednesday's. With a team no participating in BUCS, 80% of the team are away to due lectures.
DeleteWhy are you having a go at Gloucester so much? Does this fixture affect you, as a person, in any way shape or form?
that makes no sense. Are you honestly telling me that each lecturer presents two lectures, one for those students who choose to play for teams that are in the BUCS, and a different one for students that do not ? Do lecture schedulers even know which students take part in which extra-curricular activities? I doubt that very much. My understanding is that most courses specifically avoid lectures on wednesday afternoons, specifically to allow student participation in the BUCS program. Yes AF is not BUCS, but since most students have wednesday afternoons clear as a result, it makes no difference.
DeleteWhy am I having a go at Gloucester? because in this thread they've changed their excuses a number of times and still none of them hold water. It's pretty clear that once the initial postponement occurred, they attempted to avoid playing the fixture, and hoped to have it gifted to them by BUAFL. At best that's unsporting. at worst, it's blatant cheating.
and no it doesn't personally affect me directly, at least not just me. If this is the attitude of some programs within the sport, that they'll do anything to take a win to the point of intentionally being awkward and refusing to play a postponed fixture, then ultimately it affects us all.
Delete"Perhaps the poor field position their special teams have been putting them in has made them look worse than they really are" - that is 100% correct.
ReplyDeleteWhy are you all hating on Gloucester so much? Does this fixture affect anyone?
ReplyDeleteYes Cardiff and the SWAC post season situation.
DeleteSo you're from the cobras then?
Deletenope just answering the question "Does this fixture affect anyone?"
ReplyDeleteYou could argue it affects more than that as the unwillingness of teams to make games happen, leading to double headers or forfeit games is a blight on the whole league.
DeleteSay what you want about your perception of Gloucester but the truth is a team who has been in the league for 25 years could not book a pitch with like 6 months notice at least Gloucester can provide home games on a decent pitch compared with Swansea last year; soccer pitch measured 70 yards no posts so could not kick field goals or PATS. Worcester last year was 65-70 yards every single kick off the ball went flying out the back of the end zone.
ReplyDeleteAlso what was up with Worcester cancelling their Gloucester game for this year? They assumed the pitch was frozen even though they were told it was perfectly playable on the saturday so cancelled their transport then tried to shift the blame saying Gloucester's SU told them it was frozen when a name was revealed turns out their own SU told them that we said it was frozen and nobody at Gloucester had heard of this person before.
Can't accept that being a newer team excuses you from using initiative. Either one of these teams should have realised that playing in Week 2 was an option and made the case. You don't have to have been around for 25 years to be able to read a schedule.
DeleteLast time I looked there wasn't anybody who had been at Cardiff 25 years, maybe a couple people over 25 years old does that count?
DeleteI love this 25 year team argument, of course why did we not think of that sooner, everybody must lobby Andy Fuller to get that made a rule. Something along the lines of “if the one of the teams has been around for longer than the other and a game is postponed due to weather then it is their fault we could have a tie breaker for those teams that started in the same year by the date term started for those uni's that would be fair otherwise committees would just give the latest date they could to avoid being fair. Where is the sarcasm button?
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