Our Panel is comprised of West Ghana’s Rugby Rain Man Junoir Blaber, England’s Jamie Loyd, East Midlands’ Rugger Nick Hall, the infamous Ireland National, Declan Yeats, Englishman-in-Castres, James Harrington and contrived Kiwi Co-Host Johnathan Wicklow Barberie.
NEW YORK, NY- The sixth and final round of pool play in the inaugural European Champions Cup is complete. It was a defining round in the tournament and for the Six Pack predictions challenge. It was an ugly ugly week. We have not seen this much red on the table since Mssr. Harrington spilled a glass of his favorite French wine on the table. With that said, let us get to the European Cup Picks Review:
Here is the revised picks spreadsheet with the results of the match-ups. Incorrect predictions are in red.
Round 6 was a brutal week of upsets. Each member of the six-pack had at least 4 picks go against him. The results that impacted the table were Treviso versus Ospreys and Montpelier versus Toulouse… Ulster hosting Leicester and Racing Metro visiting Northampton also played a role the standings.
Loyd: 43-15, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. The Englishman had a disappointing week, which can only be described as mediocre. He was one of the four that didn’t foresee Racing winning with such ease in Northampton. He was also part of the group that were let down by Toulouse’s poor performance, for the second week in a row, as he bet against Montpellier. He was at least happy to get his Pick of the Week right as Munster didn’t let him down.
Hall: 42-18, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. Mr. Hall went from perfect one week to being tied for the worst record of the weak at 5-5. He was undone by the Leinster-Wasps tie as was everyone else. The other game that took everyone down was Treviso’s upset of Ospreys. To make matters worse, he backed English side Leicester to win against Ulster and was left disappointed. He can at least take some solace in his Pick of the Week, Clermont, being successful.
Harrington: 42-18, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong. The Castres-residing writing machine managed to keep pace by having as bad a week as Mr. Hall. He long ago gave up on his current hometown side of Castres as they got rocked again; this time by Harlequins. Our Top 14 expert got the all Top 14 clash between Toulouse lost to Montpellier. He didn’t improve his Top14 credentials by picking Racing to lose, who then went out and won empathtically. To make his week worse, he got his Pick of the Week wrong. To be specific, he did correctly pick Bath but they didn’t cover the spread.
JWB: 40-20, and our reigning champ’s Pick of the Week record remains unblemished. JWB just refuses to lose or more accurately, refuses to go away. The gap is not insurmountable but it is getting late in the prediction game for a comeback. JWB remains three games behind the leader Loyd, with only 6 games in the knock out stage left to pick. Going for Ulster in their clash against Leicester helped him close ground. Unfortunately for him, he picked Northampton at home and if he hadn’t he would be one game closer to the top. He also chose to go with the rest six-pack on picking the Ospreys to win in Treviso, which seems a smart call at the time. The man from south of Stewart Island can still boast of an unblemished Pick of the Week record as Toulon won and covered the spread.
Blaber: 37-23, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong and taking his Pick of the Week record to 3-3. Junoirdamus had an odd week. The matches he got wrong were the same as everyone. He was part of the unanimous wrong decisions in the Treviso-Ospreys game and the painful Leinster-Wasps draw. He was also part of the group that expected a Leicester Tigers to win in Ulster. The game that hurt him the most was picking an undermanned Sale against Munster in Munster. The poor form of Munster blurred his judgement, he claims. To make matters worse, his Pick of the Week was incorrect as Ospreys lost big to Treviso.
Yeats: 28-22, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong. Yeats will likely finish last and seems unabashed by it. He refuses to change his selection policy of never going against an Irish side and picking Celts over the Pigdogs (England) and garlic-munchers (France). This policy was rewarded when Munster won and so did Ulster, in a shocker. Leinster almost did the job for him but they let their possible win become a tie. The selection of Castres and Glsagow for victories were the two biggest games he picked wrong but at least he stuck to his system. He even backed Ulster for a 6 point plus win for his Pick of the Weekand they covered the spread.
In the history of the six-pack and the European/Heineken Cup, the man that goes into the quarterfinals with the lead usually wins it. However it has never been so tight between first and fourth. Jamie Loyd, remains in the lead but he can’t rest on his laurels. Let’s see what the quarterfinals have to tell us about who is championship material.
That’s it for now. Feel free to comment below, look for and “Like” our Facebook Rugby Wrap Up Page and follow us on Twitter@: RugbyWrapUp, Junoir Blaber, DJ Eberle, Nick Hall, James Harrington, Cody Kuxmann, Jaime Loyd, Karen Ritter , Jamie Wall, Jake Frechette and Declan Yeats, respectively.
