As I mentioned, it was an average but improved round for the donors in round 19, with a nice even 2200 points. That score gave us a 40,136 weekly ranking, and saw us rise a huge 117 places to 25,277 in the overall race for glory. It doesn't look like we're going to make it this year, but we're still stying!
To get ourselves a nice round number we had the following scores from our boys:
Backmen:
Hanley 108
Goddard 105
Clisby 101
Heppell 77
Webster 74
Gibbs 73
Midfielders:
Cotchin 144
Griffen 126
Dangerfield 111
Pendlebury 105 Captain 210
Selwood 103
Ablett 100 VC
Kennedy 68
T Mitchell 48
Rucks:
Cox 149
Goldstein 82
Forwards:
Rockliff 166
Johnson 106
Kennedy 101
Franklin 53
Zorko 52
Westhoff 43
Bench:
Ibbotson
Thurlow
Vlastuin 74
Martin
Nicholls
Currie
Staker 42
Rowe 75
Down back there were no missed potential points, with Ibbotson being a late out and Thurlow not playing yet again. The rest of the defence did quite well, with three topping the ton, and three 70's rounding it out. From a bunch of defenders we can't really complain.
In the mids we had all of our premiums top the ton, except for Kennedy who had a bit of a shocker really. The rookie Mitchell put in his worst performance of the season, which now throws his neck firmly over the chopping block. To make matters worse, the benched Vlastuin outscored both of these guys, with his 74 points. Once again we tried the captains loophole with Gazza and Pendles, giving permacap first crack, and then deciding that 100 points wasn't enough, so we ended up with permacap-in-waiting's 105. Unfortunately we could have gone Cotchin or Griffen and picked up 21 or 39 extra points.
In the rucks we had big Coxy putting on a last-quarter show, bringing in 149 points, and new recruit Goldstein pulling down a slightly disappointing 82 points. No bench scores, so no missed points here.
Onto the forward line, where Westhoff must have missed out on the last-quarter heroics, Zorko must have suffered from the Vossy curse of having him and Rocky in the same team at the same time, and Buddy had one of those games where nothing went right for him. All three of these boys were outdone by the benched Rowe, meaning we missed a potential 22 points here. On the flip side, our team was lead by the other half of the Vossy curse, with Rockliff scoring a huge 166 points. While we never would have done it, selecting him as captain would have made us an extra 61 points.
With the 26 potential points in the mids, the 22 potential points in the forwards, and the 61 potential points from captain selection, we could have had an extra 109 points, or basically an extra premium player out there. That would have given us a more respectable, but less round”, 2309 points for the week. Oh well, we can but dream.
As I mentioned, we had a new recruit in Goldstein this week, being a replacement for the injured and underperforming Naitanui. He scored 82 points more than NicNat did this week, so thus far its been a pretty-good trade!
Onto our leagues, since the regular season is now over, and we qualified with the double chance in all leagues, except for one, where we finished ninth, and so are the best of the losers. The way our leagues have shaped up is as follows:
UCantBeTooSerious
9th spot, equal on wins with 5th through 10th places, and only missing out on the top half by 0.13%. We were 4.5 wins or 18 points off top spot. We face Clovelly Sharks in the first round.
UCantBe TS
2nd spot, equal on wins with third, and 10 points behind top spot. We take on ELeviathans in the first round.
TS Donuts
2nd spot, equal on points with third, and one win behind top spot. We take on Black Cats in the first round.
Public League 1
4th spot, equal on points with second and third, but 5% behind, and two wins off top spot. We face Turku Turtles in the first round.
Public League 2
3rd spot, equal with second place, and one win behind top spot. We face ziggyallstars in the first round.
So there you have it for round 19 of the donor team. Come and join us over in the forum to help select the team for this week.
Good luck to those still vying for top rankings. Good luck to those trying to hit a target ranking. And good luck to those aiming for some leagues glory.