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Competition Report - 05/10/2023
- Roberto Di Statteo
- Oct 9, 2023
- 10 min read
Morning, everyone! Because of the Tuesday Luton v Burnley fixture and the European games, the Scorecast, Tablecast and Fantasy League have aligned quite nicely this week, so here are all three. You can skip to the section you're interested in by clicking one of these links:
Scorecast
(click the Scorecast logo to go to the Scorecast page)
The Scorecast competition was relatively low-scoring for Round 5, with a few surprise results fooling a few people. Not Kay Waters, though, who top-scores with 14 points despite predicting, as many did, that PSG would beat Newcastle. David Newby was the only person to predict that Newcastle would beat PSG by three goals, though the 3-0 prediction missed out on bullseye points (just like everyone else).
Here's the table:
Yin Mo holds onto first place with a respectable 9 points, the highest score of anyone in the top 8. I've dropped down to 3rd after David Threadgill outscored me in Round 5; meanwhile Jordan McKeown, Colin French, and Tablecast leader Julie Roseblade, all join the top 10 and will therefore be featured in Issue 4 of the Scorecast Stats Bulletin, to be released just before Round 6 deadline. Kay Waters is the highest climber, gaining 48 places on the previous round; Mark Turnbull gets an honourable mention, his second-best score of 12 points gaining him 40 places in the table. John Waters is the only player to hit double figures other than those already mentioned (Kay, Colin, Mark and Julie); meanwhile, after a bit of a shocker with only 3 points, Callum Wink is our biggest faller, dropping 28 places from 29th to 57th.
It's all still to play for, though, and new entry Simon Coles has opened his account with 5 points... not great, but in a low-scoring week for everyone, it's really only important to get on the board. At present, the highest-placed player to have missed a round is Glenn Gregory, who's in 36th place. Hopefully we'll see a few more of those of you who've not played every round, catching up to the top half of the table before long.
Tablecast
(click the Tablecast logo to go to the Tablecast page)
The Tablecast has moved around quite a bit the last two weeks, but it does seem to be settling (and I can prove it). At one moment in time between Gameweeks 7 and 8, Jane O'Donoghue was top with EIGHT bullseyes but has since dropped down to ninth position.
I'm covering 2 weeks here, GW7 and then GW8... so here's the table as it stood after GW7:
Sorry to say the only non-mover was Sarah Waters, my missus, who stayed rock-bottom of the league and five points astray :(
Julie Roseblade topped the league after climbing 8 places; she had 15 of the 20 teams in the Premier League within three places of where they were a week ago. Karl Hull, Mark Habbishaw, Colin Wesbroom, John Thompson, and Leslie Anderson each had 16 within three places, which was the best total last week.
Nobody had all of the bottom three, or all of the top four, correct as of last week. David Waters led the bullseyes with seven. Here's a comparison of 2nd (David) and 1st (Julie) place:
Despite the bullseyes lead, Julie was only one away from a further five clubs (Arsenal, Brighton, Wolves, Everton, and Sheffield United) and two away from another three (Newcastle, West Ham and Brentford). By comparison, David is one away from four (Villa, Brighton, Crystal Palace and Everton) but no closer than three away for everyone else. Hence, Julie topped the league for GW7.
Meanwhile, Thomas Schrouder plummeted from 2nd to 49th, but our biggest faller was Lauren Scobie who dropped 61 places, to 84th. Conversely, our biggest climber this week is Mark Habbishaw, who's climbed 52 places to 7th. Honourable mentions to Jordan McKeown, who climbed 51 places, and John Christian who was up by 45.
Previous leader Robert Pentland remained in the top 10 with Brian Waite rejoining; David Waters, only out of the top 10 for 2 out of the 7 rounds so far, back among them again. David Osguthorpe in 5th, Graeme Gilhespy in 6th, and Mark Habbishaw in 7th, joined the top 10 for the first time this season; Karl Hull stays in the top 10 after breaking into them last week and, after a slow start, hit his season's best position of 3rd. Stuart Latimer, who was top in week 1 and then fell as low as 81st, got himself back up to 11th.
That's old news though. What happened this week?
Well... this week, I managed to put a graph together so I could see what the movement was like on the table. It was far too confusing with all 98 of us on there, so I thought I'd track the top 10's journey to where they've ended up as of today.
The current top 10 can be seen on the left (in this order). As you can see from the graph, each of the people now in the top 10 seems to have been gradually climbing and/or hovering there for at least the last 2 to 3 weeks, showing that the league is beginning to settle down and people are gravitating to the areas of the table in which they're likely to finish (sorry Sarah). Of course, there will still be the odd shake-up, like if someone in the top 4 suddenly loses 2 on the bounce and West Ham get in there, it might shift the scores violently for one week and then go back to where it was the next. At the end of the season I'll publish a series of graphs that feature everyone, so you can see how you performed throughout the season. As for this week, David Osguthorpe, only in the top 10 for the first time last week, has gone to the #1 spot, with Julie Roseblade only dropping to 2nd place by 2 points. Karl Hull only loses one position also, as early league leader Stuart Latimer climbs from 11th to 3rd. Jane O'Donoghue, David Waters, Robert Pentland and Graeme Gilhespy drop out of the top 10, replaced by Stuart Latimer, John Thompson, Andy James, and Les Anderson. Here's the actual full table as it stands right now.
Table as of 09/10/2023
Fantasy League
NB: The league update takes a while, and so does the write-up, so please don't expect the information you see in these reports to reflect what you've just seen on the weekend... it'll be out of sync. These reports will only detail the internal Toontalk competition designed by Michael Hannard. To see how you're getting on in the Toontalk Sweet FA Premiership, and your latest scores, go to the official Fantasy Premier League website.
To go straight to the Toontalk Fantasy League main page (with the schedule on it and tables for all the divisions) click the lion:
To go to any particular section of the Fantasy League report, click these links:
To go to any of the competition pages detailed below, just click the relevant blue button.
The Cup
First of all, let's have a look at the cup replay from last GW. Paul Riley and Les Anderson finished 79-79 in their original cup tie. The replay this week almost went to extra time and penalties... no idea how that would've worked! National League 3's Les Anderson was the eventual winner of the tie, 47-45, and will play against the Championship's Robert Hutchinson in the Round of 32 in Gameweek 12. Go to the Toontalk Cup page by clicking the button above.
The National Leagues
I'll start at the bottom this time and work my way up. In NL4 this GW, Gokula Maanickam had a dismal week as Ilkka Pentillä, now 3rd, was able to beat him with only 37 points. So, Gokula has finally lost a game and been unceremoniously replaced at the top of the table by Matthew Pike. Matthew beat Jonathan Ireland by 16 points to go top but it was Ryley Hill that picks up top-score bonus points with 77. It's Ian Garrett, though, who claims Manager of the Month for September with an impressive 207 points for the month. Matthew's four wins in a row is the joint-longest winning streak in the entire Toontalk Fantasy Premier League system.
Colin Wesbroom top-scored in NL3, beating Callum Henderson 68-52 in the process; he goes second in the league with Joshua Lian holding onto top spot with a narrow victory over 11th-placed Robert Pentland. Colin takes both Manager of the Week for GW7 AND Manager of the Month for September, beating league leader Joshua Lian by 5 points for the month; Lee Girdlestone picks up a bonus point after beating Stuart Latimer, the latter's third defeat in a row knocking him down to 4th. Ryan Jensen, in 3rd place, is another joint-longest winning streak holder, picking up his 4th win on the bounce, 65-50 against Laura Martin.
NL2 saw Ben Harper hold onto top spot last GW, despite losing his first game of the season. This GW, he's still there having won Manager of the Week for the first time since GW1 and, as of now, is the only person in the entire Fantasy League competition to have stayed at the top of their division every GW from the beginning. Well done, Ben! David Miller's second win on the bounce takes him off the bottom while very narrow victories for Raju Daju and Alex Banks keep them nail-bitingly in touch with the league leader. Sam Benton also had a very narrow victory, just off the back of a similarly narrow Manager of the Month victory for September.
The 5th flight has gone five games with Greg Surtees unbeaten though the cup defeat against John Waters must've shaken his confidence; a dismal 33 for him saw Dan Potter's "Pique Blinders" to an easy victory... only their second of the season. Greg drops to 4th place and David Munroe rises from 5th to top of the league following a Manager-of-the-Week-winning 86-52 victory over Andrew Barcs. David is the GW top scorer across all of the National League divisions; he gets Manager of the Month for September as well, though honourable mention to John Thomas who came second only by way of David's best 86 beating his own best of 69 for the month.
The Elite Leagues
(except not really because start-of-season placement was arbitrary)
Finn Nilsson's fourth win from six sees him rise to the top of League Two for the first time, with a top score for the whole Toontalk Fantasy League system, of 92. He also bags Manager of the Week and Manager of the Month after beating the division's lowest scorer, Daryl Coombs, by 48 points. Daryl led the division after GW3 but two defeats on the bounce see him down to 6th. Steve Beggs is bottom with only a point - he is the only person in the league system not to have won a game so far this season.
League One sees both Yin Mo and Stephen Wallace pick up their third wins in a row, the latter going top of the division for the first time, with the former continuing his recovery from a dismal start in which he found himself bottom of the league after three defeats in a row. Yin is Manager of the Month for September despite not having won a Manager of the Week competition yet; Stephen picked up Manager of the Week for Game 6 (GW7) so these are definitely the two in-form players so far, despite being separated by five places. Meanwhile, a very close game between two former league leaders and promotion hopefuls, Bob Douglass and Archie Walker, ended 42-46 to Archie.
Now, the one I've been waiting to see... and it's not good news for me by the looks of it. Only my third defeat of the season against top-of-the-league opposition which is the third and final player who's on a 4-in-a-row winning streak. Well done Liam Frost (he says, cursing under his breath). Robert Hutchinson's 5-game losing streak is the standalone longest in any division, but he still has better points difference than Dean Hadfield, who props up the table. Liam Frost takes Manager of the Month with 200 points, then on 190 there's James Crunkhorn whose high-score in September of 75 puts him second place ahead of Craig Purvis. The latter is Manager of the Week this week, though, with 71 points.
Last but not least, the Premier Division, and Stephen Towers' 79-48 victory over Daniel Bishop sees the former go top of the league and the latter fall to the bottom. John Waters' first defeat of the season came at the same time as Greg Surtees' in NL1 AND Gokula Maanickam's in NL4, meaning those three players equally share the title of longest unbeaten survivors at the beginning of the season. Andrew Young moves up a spot despite losing his fourth game on the trot, after Kay Waters beat him for her second win in a row, and a climb off the bottom of the division for the first time since GW1. Stephen Towers is both Manager of the Week and Manager of the Month as he wrests top spot back from Chris Parvin.
The Tournament
As the only competition in which everyone starts on exactly equal footing, this will be the only Fantasy League based competition that involves a prize, for now (though, as usual, we're still not sure what it's going to be). To go to the Tournament page, click this button:
Here are the Tournament group tables as they stand after 2 games:
Congratulations to Stephen Towers and Mark Robson, Ashley Birchall and Ibrahim Halawi, Richard Harrison and Ian Thirkeld; you've all qualified from your prospective groups, but must play each other (in the order I've just named you) to see who finishes top of each group.
Unfortunately this means Yiu-Keung Tsang and Laura Martin, Callum Wink and Shade Hartline, and Frankie Durham and Graham Testo can only hope for a third-place finish should they win their fixtures (against each other, in that order) and only the best two thirds of the 3rd-placed teams will go through to the second round. Nobody is out of the competition yet, but if you're on 0 points and have negative goal difference, chances are getting slimmer by the minute.
It's quite close in some groups, though - particularly Group 4 in which points difference separates all four players (Roy Parkinson, Enda McGuane, Gokula Maanickam and Mike Waters). In Group 19, Lee Petty, Chris Abbott and Jonathan Adamson all still have a chance of automatic qualification, whereas Peter Christie will need a huge points-difference swing to avoid elimination from the competition.
The Tournament will continue with Game 3 from all the groups, in Gameweek 9. Gameweek 8 is the one we've just had, and will be processed shortly - the weekend just gone will only affect the league tables, not the Cup or Tournament competitions.
If you want to go to a different section of this article, click one of the links:
To go to one of the competition pages, click these buttons:
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