The Six Pack is comprised of RWU staff members. West Ghana’s Rugby Rain Man Junoir Blaber, England’s Knight of the Realm Jamie Loyd, East Midlands’ Machiavellian Rugger Nick Hall, the infamous Ireland National, Declan Yeats, Englishman with Irish roots yet Castres-residing, James Harrington and contrived Kiwi Co-Host Johnathan Wicklow Barberie.
NEW YORK, NY- Round 2 of the European Champions Cup was a tough week for some of the members of the Six Pack. A couple had a weekend to remember while the majority had a weekend they truly wish to forget. The dirtiest player in contemporary rugby history is former Irish International Declan Yeats, however he seems to have learned a few things on the farm and had a great week to grab some attention in the match picking stakes. Week 2 of the competition is still too young to ruin a title run but a horrible week can leave an expert playing catch-up and with that we get to our European Cup Picks Review.
Round 2 had a few down the middle splits as well as 4-2 or 5-1 splits. Those that went against the tide this week were rewarded for their bravery and it would turn out to the difference between keeping pace or fall to the back of the pack.
The results that impacted the table were Munster versus Saracens and Bath versus Toulouse… Leicester visiting Scarlets and Ulster hosting Toulon also had a huge impact.
Here is the revised picks spreadsheet with the results of the match-ups. Incorrect predictions are in red.
Yeats: 14-6, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. Last week Yeats’ explained his thought process. Never go against an Irish side, pick Celts over the Pigdogs (England) and garlic-munchers (France), if it is between the French and English go with the French, never ever the English and if it is 2 English sides, hope there is an earthquake that swallows both teams up and ends a draw. I hoped you laughed as hard as we did at that. Well Yeats had the last laugh this week by going 7-3 using that logic and claiming 1st place. Ulster let him down but Munster and Leinster won tough matches and by backing the Celts he also went 2-1. He did have good sense to back Racing Metro to win as his Pick of the Week, and they delivered.
Loyd: 13-7, with the mild shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong. The Englishman had a mixed week. He went 5-5 this week with support of Toulon at Ulster against the views of the whole pack the key to reaching .500. In the even split matches he went 1-2 in his calls as backing Glasgow got him a win but Wasps and Castres did him no favors. Once again his Pick of the Week was hugely wrong. Loyd picked a big win by Leicester and they not only didn’t cover the spread, they failed to win period.
Hall: 13-7 with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. Hall had a mixed weekend. He guess wronged on two matches that split the pack as he backed his hometown side, Leicester and fellow English side Bath. He supported former Leicester assistant Matt O’Connor’s Leinster and Glasgow in other matches that split the pack and got those right. He played it safe by picking Racing as his Pick of the Week and got that right.
Harrington: 13-7, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. the Castres-residing writing machine went with his hometown side of Castres and got that pick wrong. He went with his Irish roots and backed Munster in their fight against Saracens and got that right. His knowledge of French rugby was not there this week as it was last week. He got the unanimous picks of Clermont and Racing right but the other 4 matches involving French sides he failed to pick properly. He can at least takeaway a positive in getting his Pick of the Week correct as Racing won by more than enough.
JWB: 12-8, and our reigning champ got his Pick of the Week right. JWB is keeping up with the pack but has yet to make a move to the top. This weekend didn’t help him as he was only slightly better than mediocre. His weekend got off to a bad start as he got 4 wrong picks in the first 5 games. As bleak as that looked he rallied to go undefeated the rest of the weekend to go 6-4. Picking Leinster and Quins proved to be huge wins for him, as well as, bucking the rest of the pack and picking Toulouse to defeat Bath. For his Pick of the Week, he relied on Racing to come up big and they did.
Blaber: 10-10, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 1-1. It may be time to retire the Junoirdamus monicker because Mr. Blaber was horrible this weekend. Every tight game that could have gone his way didn’t. He complied a record low weekly score of 3-7. It dropped him to last place, 4 games behind the pacesetter. The only games he got right were the 2 unanimous decisions of Clermont and Racing and the rather straightforward selection of Northampton over Ospreys. Two rounds in and the pressure is already mounting. He cannot have a week like this again or all hopes of a title are dashed. He can take some solace in his Pick of the Week being correct as Racing covered the spread.
Round 2 is done and dusted. The unlikely leader of the pack is Declan Yeats, but can his simple formula continue and if it does will others just follow suit? Stay tuned as ther RWU Six Pack will have picks ready for you when actions resumes and round 3 begins.
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.
And as always, stay low and keep pumping those legs.
