THE ROUND NINE DEADLINE

Boasters League final round~~

The overall effort to play make-up matches in the last 10 days or so was by all means praiseworthy. It certainly boosted the statistics for the second half, and thankfully so. Now they only look somewhat disappointing as opposed to downright awful. I am aware I have been a little harsh about the participation, but you will understand why once you see the numbers below.

Of course the final round push to make the finals can make it exciting. There was no drama, however, of who was going to end up in first place. Winky-Dinks made sure of that at least 2 weeks ago. As usual, the attention is focused at the bottom of the ladder and which 3 teams will be eliminated. Vivio’s, Nick at Night, and On the Rocks were all looking down the barrel after round 8, and by the time the day of round 9 was upon us, that hadn’t changed. In fact, due to some make-up matches, they were actually even further behind.

However, an impressively strong showing from Nick at Night propelled them up the standings and from being in last place 9 days ago, they find themselves in 4^th place now and in the play-offs. That’s a 64 point boost – great stuff! The team that suffered the consequences because of that? The Nicker Ballers. They picked up by far the least amount of points in round 9 and now have to pay the price with elimination.

Let’s gloss over the stats for the second half and see just how ‘yucky’ they really are:

• 69% of matches were completed this half. Down from the 78% in the first half, and down from the 72% from the second half last season. So, in the end, it wasn’t as disastrous as first predicted, but still not great. 
• Mongoose and Winky-Dinks played the most matches with 76%. 
• Least amount of matches…? Nick and Night with 61%. 
• Nick at Night reached the play-offs anyway because they had the best win percentage with 61.45%. They also tied with most number of 3-0 wins. 
• On the Rocks had the worst win percentage with 38.95%. But when they did win, they won 3-0 46% of the time – 4^th best in the league. 
• Bonus points. Hardly groundbreaking stats here once again. Winky-Dinks collected the most (89). The top 4 teams are in the top 4 for bonus points as well. The bottom 3 teams are in the bottom 4 for bonus points. The outlier: Nick at Night. They picked up the least of any team with 56. It’s actually not a trend you want to carry forward into the play-offs were bonus points are even more important. 
• Only 13 players picked up all 8 bonus points. 12 players didn’t pick up any. 
• 21 players played all 8 matches. There were 26 players who did that in the first half. 
• Nobody played all 8 matches and went undefeated. 
• The most overall points any player picked up in the second half was Fred Fordon (Winky-Dinks) with 26. The maximum would be 32. 
• Most points scored in any one round was the Winky-Dinks in round 2 with 40. 
• Least amount of points scored in any one round was 12 by the Nicker Ballers in round 8. 
• Not once were all 17 matches completed in any one round. 16 matches were completed just twice. 
• Round 2 had the most matches completed with 78%. That is very low.

We now look to next week and the quarter final match ups. Foss Nation take on the surging Nick at Night. These 2 teams played each other not too long ago in round 7. Ten of the 17 matches were played, Nick at Night won 7 of them, but had a very low bonus-point turn out. Still, Nick at Night won 25-19, so the edge for this one leans that way, this could come down to who actually turns up next Wednesday.

The second quarter final sees the Butter Nutz battle the Wardogs. In almost identical fashion to the previous paragraph, this match up was again on preview in round 7, 10 of the 17 matches were completed, and Wardogs won 7 of them. On this occasion however, Wardogs also outscored Butter Nutz in bonus points, and won the round 28-20. Vegas odds are leaning slightly towards Wardogs here, but it would be no surprise to me if Butter Nutz end up on top. Nine of the 10 matches they played in round 7 were a 2-1 score line – so it’s competitive.