The RWU Expert Panel is comprised of Rugby Rain Man Junoir Blaber, England’s Jamie Loyd, American Brit Nick Hall, infamous Ireland National, Declan Yeats, Englishman-in-Castres, James Harrington and contrived Kiwi Co-Host, Johnathan Wicklow Barberie.
NEW YORK, NY – The 2015 6 Nations have come to a close. In an interesting twist, the panel race for the title was similar to the real life 6 Nations title, it was a his 3 horse race for the title. Every member of the panel watched the matches with baited breathe. Let’s see how the experts finished in our final 6 Nations Picks Review for this year.
-The Italy versus Wales was the pacesetter match as Wales came out the gate playing with the ambition to win it all and lit up the scoreboard.
-The Scotland versus Ireland continued the frantic pace as the Irish chased the points difference title and hoped they had done enough in their victory.
-The England versus France game was the final game of the day and it had it all as England played their most expansive rugby in years and France would not go away quietly.
FINAL STANDINGS:
Hall: 13 -2, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 2-3. Mr. Hall went into the weekend in first place and went flawless this weekend to stay first. The difference for him in the overall campaign was correctly picking the Wales win over France. That pick put him in the lead after round 3 and he never looked back.
JWB: 12-3, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 2-2. JWB made his picks first, unaware of that Hall would make the same exact picks. It doomed JWB to 2nd place. He had a great run, but just came up short.
Loyd: 12 -3, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 3-2. The Noble Englishman didn’t want to come second but also didn’t want to take the chance of an un-perfect weekend. It was his winless Round 3 that did him in, as he was perfect in every round including the last. 1 round made all the difference.
Harrington: 9 -6, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 4-1. The Castres-residing writing machine is another that couldn’t recover from a win-less round 3. He went 2-1 in rounds 1, 2 and 4. Despite a perfect final round, the win-less round brought him down to fourth and that is where he finished.
Yeats: 8-7 with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week wrong and taking his Pick of the Week record to 4-1. You just gotta love a man like Yeats. Stats, analysis, injuries and form be damned. He has a system and he sticks with it. Always pick Ireland, Never pick England, Support the Celts when possible and only pick France if they are playing England or Italy. You may laugh but his instincts almost got him the pick of the week title and he avoided the wooden spoon. It is he, who gets the final laugh.
Blaber: 8-7, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong and taking his Pick of the Week record to 2-3. It wasn’t a terrible year, 3 weeks of 2-1 and 2 weeks of 1-2, it just military medium. For the 2015 expert panel picks group, there was no room for mediocrity.
FINAL RESULTS:
Overall Winner: The 2015 RBS 6 Nations Expert Panel Picks Champion is Nicholas Avallone Hall!! The young man with nicknames like Midlands renaissance man and American Brit, takes the title with a near flawless record.
Pick of the Week James Harrington is the official Pick of the Week winner. It was originally a tie between James Harrington and Declan Yeats. They were both near perfect at 4-1. However, with Harrington have the tie-breaking better overall picks record, the title went to him.
Wooden Spoon: Should Mr. Blaber ever be making porridge, he won’t need to dig in his kitchen drawer for a spoon, he can just go to his mantle. Tied for last place with Yeats but losing out on the account of his poor Pick of the Week record.
That is it for RWU Panel for now, until the European Cup starts back up! We will see you then.
Feel free to comment below, look for and “Like” our Facebook Rugby Wrap Up Page and follow us on Twitter@: RugbyWrapUp, Junoir Blaber, James Harrington, Jamie Wall, Nick Hall, DJ Eberle, Jake Frechette, Scheenagh Harrington, Jamie Loyd, Cody Kuxmann, Karen Ritter, Audrey Youn, Akweley Okine and Declan Yeats, respectively.
And as always, stay low and keep pumping those legs.
