David Robertson wrote:What happened to your own in here? They used to be good
Thank you. I'll add a couple of observations here, which have not as far as I know been made elsewhere:
The significance of one first division match
The seventh round encounter between Grantham Sharks v Barbican 2 looked like a shoot-out for the fourth place in their pool. To be sure both teams trailed South Wales Dragons, but they were up against Guildford 1, and in the event of another heavy win by the latter, the winner of Grantham v Barbican 2 could expect to progress. Sure enough the two teams were evenly matched, and in the event Barbican 2 avenged their narrow defeats in the previous two years and qualified for the championship pool for the fourth time in the last five years.
But the significance of that encounter went far beyond the two teams directly concerned. First, there were the familiar collateral consequences. Sussex Martlets welcomed Barbican 2 ‘s victory and indeed spent much of the seventh round closely watching it. For them, it means that they “keep” their win over Grantham Sharks in the demotion promotion pool, and not their loss to Barbican 2. South Wales Dragons were hoping (plausibly enough) for a drawn match, which would have meant their own advance to the championship pool, but still preferred a Barbican 2 win to a Grantham win, again because they would carry forward a point against Grantham as opposed to none from Barbican 2. Cambridge would have preferred a Grantham win, on the other hand, since they would then not have carried over their 6-2 defeat against them in the first weekend, and a Barbican 2 win was the last thing they wanted, since they had beaten them 6-2 in the third weekend and had now lost their best result of their season.
Then there is the less obvious beneficiary of Barbican 2’s win, who might not be aware of it themselves: none other than Cheddleton. For them, Barbican 2’s team elevation gives them the chance of challenging Guildford on game points as well as matchpoints, going into what is assumed to be their title deciding clash in round 11. Had either of Grantham or South Wales Dragons progressed instead of Barbican 2, then Guildford would have carried an 8-0 victory forward with their other two overwhelming victories. Instead Guildford carry forward just the 4.5 gamepoints that they scraped against Barbican 2. Their gamepoint lead over Cheddleton in the new promotion pool is now narrow, at just one point, with Guildford having apparently the harder pairings in rounds 9 and 10.
Should Cheddleton enter the last round with a half point gamepoint extra, then at the very least, the odds of the title going to Cheddleton for the first time would be due for some revision. In the five previous matches between teams on the same matchpoints playing directly for the title (in 2005, 2006, 2011, 2013, 2014) three of them were drawn and the title thus went to the team which had held the lead on gamepoints.
The significance of one second division default
Grantham Sharks 1 had a tough fourth weekend; not only did they lose their promotion pool challenge on the Saturday, but they then suffered a further reverse against Spirit of Atticus in the new relegation pool. Relegation, remarkably, is now a real danger for them. Salvation may be at hand, however. By contrast their second team won both matches in the second division. The first win, against Kings Head, was necessary for them to reach the promotion pool, and their win on the Sunday against KJCA Kings leaves them as joint leaders in the promotion pool.
For this to happen, it was necessary for them to beat Kings Head, but not sufficient. They had also become reliant on a result elsewhere; specifically they also needed Guildford 3 to lose to Celtic Knights, which was possible but not probable. They might have been heartened to see Guildford 3 enter the match with only a modest rating advantage. But for them it must have been manna from heaven when Guildford 3’s player did not show up; and when it transpired that Guildford’s non-playing captain Roger Emerson had not nominated himself as a reserve. (Presumably this was an oversight: he has been listed as a reserve in previous weekends). So Celtic Knights started with a point advantage, plus a further penalty point for Guildford, and it was that extra penalty which gave Celtic Knights the match (4-3, even though Guildford had made 4 points over the other seven boards) and Grantham Sharks 2 their place in the promotion pool.
We haven’t yet had a situation where two teams from the same club have crossed at the end of the season, eg the second team having qualified for a higher division than the first team. This might well be as close as it comes, though it was also an outside possibility between Barbican 2 and Barbican Youth back in 2011, and still a reasonable possibility between Cambridge 1 and Cambridge 2 going into the last round in 2014. It will be very interesting to see how Grantham deploy their resources in the final weekend. But lovers of anomalies need not get too excited: if their teams do cross, Grantham will still be able to nominate their higher rated team as their first division team next year.
