Anyways, the donor team for round 15 got one of Richie Benaud's favourite scores, with 2,223 (one point too many for the perfect *two* thousand *two* hundred and twenty *two*). This put us as 49,399 for the week, and at 26,170 in the overall. We won three of five leagues, and we're firmly entrenched in the top 8 in four of them.
I've never quite understood the English - they apparently love their cricket, but can't be bothered building grounds big enough for people to go watch it. Just heard the commentators say that Trent Bridge is a full house at 17,100 people. Being a Perth boy I can tell you that even the WACA holds more than that, and when something as important as the Ashes come along, they bring in temporary stands to make sure that more people can fit it!
Sorry, you might find me digressing a bit during this report. But for now lets get back to it. Our 2223 points for round 15 came on the back of 22 scoring players, an emergency outscoring all bar 5 of our players, and Thurlow standing in as captain after Gazza decided he needed a holiday (yeah, I know, injuries aren't funny, and I don't wish them upon everyone, but still….). The team breakdown is as follows:
Backmen:
Goddard 134
Hanley 117
Ibbotson 70
Heppell 69
Gibbs 59
Clisby 46 (Emergency, C-loophole)
Midfielders:
Pendlebury 154 VC with C-loophole 308
Selwood 151
Dangerfield 136
Griffen 107
T. Mitchell 106
Cotchin 104
Kennedy 96
Vlastuin 35
Ruckmen:
Nicholls 99
Naitanui 79
Forwards:
Kennedy 106
Rockliff 101
Zorko 92
Cox 83
Westhoff 64
Franklin 61
Bench:
Webster
Thurlow (C-loophole)
Ablett
Martin
Rowe
Currie
Johnson
Staker 110 (Emergency)
So yes, after hearing the news of Ablett out we gave Pendles the VC with the C originally on Griffen, but after the 154 from Pendles we decided to take advantage of the loophole and take his score, which turned out to be a great move as Pendles was our highest scorer of the week. Our bench was a bunch of spuds, except for Staker, whose 110 points killed all our forwards, and most of the rest of our team, so meant we missed out on a potential 49 points (swap for Franklin) with team selection.
There were no other real missed points this week, although using our trades to have Staker down back would have gotten us a few more points. On the trades, we dumped Dixon and Lester for Gibbs and Clisby this week, with Dixon not playing and Lester only scoring 54 points you would think this was two very good trades, but based on just this round it wasn't our best effort… Gibbs decided to spud it up a bit with a 59, while Clisby's 46 for a rookie defender can't be sneezed at, its still not impressive.
I mentioned our leagues earlier, where we're now ranked 10th in UCantBeTooSerious after a loss, 2nd in UCantBe TS after a win, 4th in the TS Donuts after a loss, and after wins in our two public leagues we're 2nd and 3rd in these.
I'll let you all get back to watching GEM and cheering on our boys, but in the meantime please head on over to the donor forum and help us out with the team selection for week 16.