Quite an obvious disparity popped up this week between the
current top 3 teams and the rest. Mongoose,
Butter Nutz and Over Served all picked up over 40 points, making a clear push in
the last couple of rounds and cementing their finals positions. The next best
team this week? The (then) last placed Nicker
Ballers. With 32. Which has actually given them a glimmer of hope to reach
the 6th and last play-off position that is at the moment held by Foss Nation.
Wardogs pretty
much stitched themselves with only 19 points, the least amount gathered of all
the teams and have fallen to last place – now 10 points behind the Nicker Ballers who they actually have
to play next week to finish the season. They can either help each other here,
or… not. Everyone needs to remember, the last three teams on the standings will
be eliminated.
As I said last week, it appears Mongoose have safely secured top spot for the play-offs. Even
though they are tied with Butter Nutz,
the Butter Nutz have the last round
bye. So their main concern is now holding onto second spot – which would give
them a first round bye in the finals – from Over Served. It’s a 25 point gap, so Over Served have work to do to catch them, but it is definitely
within reach.
An extra special mention to the Butter Nutz team since they are the first team this season to pick
up all 17 bonus points for one round.
Amazing effort for sure. If Over Served
happen to tie them for the second spot on the standings, the tie-break would be
the total bonus points. No prize if you can guess who would win that.
We have had 26 matches played so far for week 8. An
unusually high number of 3-0 results litter the score sheet (15) which of
course a good thing for the players (and teams) on the winning side of that
(!). Anomalies like this will happen – for example, Wardogs have so far 6 matches completed for the round, but only 3
points to show for it! Hopefully for the finals where teams play head-to-head,
it will even itself out more competitively.
There is only 1 week to go and the deadline (March 1) is
looking more ominous as each day passes. I do expect a little scrambling to
occur during the final few days although I do say that every year and I usually
end up somewhat dissatisfied that more matches weren’t completed. Hopefully the
final push will be better this time.