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 5 of the European Champions Cup was a defining round in the tournament and for the Six Pack. The round has done its best to create a clear definition of the members that can honestly say they are in it to win it and those that are just making up the numbers. It was positive weekend for nearly for all the members but that meant that there is less time to catch up for the chasing pack. There is only one more round then playoffs so time is running out to make a move to close in on the lead or consolidate on the lead. One member had a perfect week too which is a first for this iteration of the six pack. With that we get to our European Cup Picks Review.
Round 5 had a few 5-1 splits and unanimous decisions. Those that went with the tide this week were rewarded for their bravery or lack thereof it..The results that impacted the table were Munster versus Saracens and Bath versus Toulouse… Leicester hosting Scarlets and Ulster visiting Toulon also played a role in picks.
Here is the revised picks spreadsheet with the results of the match-ups. Incorrect predictions are in red.
Loyd: 38-12, with with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. The Englishman a near perfect week. He foresaw Toulon winning at home and Racing winning with ease. He was so confident in Racing winning that he made them his pick of the week. The only match that let him down was Toulouse’s poor performance at home to Bath. Every other match seemed to go his way.
Hall: 37-13, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. Mr. Hall can go down as Mr. Perfect for this round. He saw every match coming. He was one of two, six-pack members to pick Bath on the road against Toulouse. He also predicted Wasps upending Harlequins in the all Aviva Premiership clash. He also made the safe pick by choosing Northampton over Ospreys for his pick of the week.
Harrington: 37-13, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right. the Castres-residing writing machine was not to be discounted. He was smart enough to pick against his current hometown side of Castres as they got rocked by Leinster. The only matches he got wrong were the two toughest matches of the weekend. He picked Toulouse at home which was the wrong and shocking for our Top 14 expert. He also went with ‘Quins over Wasps, which was the tightest game to call for everyone.
JWB: 34-16, and our reigning champ got his Pick of the Week right. JWB is trying to keep up with the pack. However they are opening up a gap which he may not be able to close. JWB’s problem is that he had a good weekend but the other 3 guys ahead of him also got most their picks right, so he barely gained any ground. It is and was tough or JWB to separate himself from the other match day selectors as it is too risky to go with the underdog in some of these clashes. He was one of the two to pick Quins so that helped him improve slightly. Racing as his pick of the week was also a benefit and he can at least boast of an unblemished PotW record..
Blaber: 31-19, with the bonus of getting the Pick of the Week right and taking his Pick of the Week record to 3-2-. The self proclaimed Junior decision to be known as Junoirdamus appears to have been a bad call. It appears that within this group that Monsieur Blaber can be should be called Alsorandamus as he has no chance of winning it and his best hope is to finish fourth. He can take some solace in his Pick of the Week being correct as Northampton more than covered the spread.
Yeats: 28-22, with the shame of getting the Pick of the Week wrong. Yeats selection process of never going against an Irish side and picking Celts over the Pigdogs (England) and garlic-munchers (France), if it is between the French and English go with the French has comeback to bite him. It did him well in the first two rounds but as the pool play has dragged on, the Irish sides have not performed and the English sides are having a good season. Munster and Ulster lost, the Scarlets couldn’t handle Leicester and the Bath upset of Toulouse all lead him to having the worst record on the weekend and falling to last place in the six-pack.
Round 5 is done and dusted. The leader of the pack is Jamie Loyd, but the pursuing pack has left him very little room for error. We will see what the standings look like after round 6. 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.
