Well! Bongser is now clued in as to why this Blackpudlian event is known as The Summer Bash rather than Magic Weekend. Tragic weekend for most. Bongser has been holed up at work for the whole of it, in heat like today’s with no air-con on his floor and is even working tomorrow. ‘Fax are now ahead of Leigh and have a game in hand. Bongser only called 3/6 in the SL Predland of WA2 and all his Saturday predicted winners, across the divisions, went mammaries up!
It didn’t go too well for most of The Nine either, though.
Only Atomic & Pubbers called the upset for the Barrovians. Then, alongside just Van the Man, correctly called the ‘Fax win. Was he to again steal Charlie Caroli’s laurels amidst the heart of the latter’s adopted manor?
Along came the last quarter of the third Saturday tie (the one that must not be named). Only Wanderer called the winners verily (though many of them prefer to be called Valerie at the weekend). Furthermore, he nailed the bonus question with five p&p Leythers crossing the line successfully and nominated two of them. Bravo!
So Day One of the Bash ended with a mere five correctly guessed prevailing sides from TWENTY-SEVEN PUNTS – and with no less than five of the faithful having merely the one attendance point to cover their modesty!!
Sunday afternoon came along and things improved for most, temporarily at least. Only Cokey & Pubbers miscalled the Tou-Lon game (not another set of Crapauds in the ENGLISH league but merely the column headers on Bongser’s spreadsheet).
A Swinton win against the knights of the ‘Dale was seen by no one hereupon but should be applauded by all as, unless a serious grudge is held against another team, nobody wants to see a club go through a season winless. Hemel & West Wales still are winless, but are still to face each other twice. Those’ll be, errm, ding-dong dooos! Your correspondent is surprised that the RFL didn’t invite them as another expansionist curtain raiser at Magic Weekend. Curious!
Nor does anyone wish to see any of our band of brothers go through a week in attendance winless, but that is what Cokey was staring in the face as the last of this week’s matches kicked off. He had boldly predicted a 24 all draw in the Batley versus Dewsbury curtain downer, with the majority of the rest going for a Batley win.
With ten minutes to go and with the score at 18 apiece, Cokey looked to be pulling it out of the fire by being the inaugural correct predder of a draw (5 point bonus on top of his correct “winner” & margin five points). What was more, were the combatants to swap converted tries in those dying minutes, he would see a further 20 points for an exact scoreline and a WWB of a further 25. From 0 to 55 in 10 minutes, sounds like the Cairoli mobile!
Alack & alas, Paul “Eric” Sykes had the last laugh with a converted penalty and our only scorer was Zools. Well done to him.
One point only then for Cokey who knows that there’s some serious ribbing coming from one man & his dog this week. He is however not the inaugural scratch-out and so that feat will forever be known as “doing a jack”.
This week’s scores are worth posting as they are so pitiful (in reverse order (and ignoring non-attenders)):
Cokey – 1
Bongser & Pubbers -3
Zulu, Charlie, VL & WLJ – 5
Atomic – 7
Wanderer (with 16 in BBQ points) – 21. Adding a 25 point WWB (huzzay!), here are the standings:
Despite a pappekak weekend at Blackpuddle, it’s still
1. The Clown on 414
2. Atomic on 401 (raise your bat, Sirrah)
3. Wanderer on 373
4. Pubbers on 344
5. Zools on 322
6. WLJ on 302 (get it up, man)
7. Bongser on 291
8. Cokey on 271
9. Van Helsing on 210
10. Jack Diggle on 112
11. LeytherX111 on 98 (seemingly VERY nervous nineties – though we also shouldn’t speak of cricket this wretched weekend)
12. SaBadSel on 20
Readers should note that, whilst backing the Trannies this round, the resultant weekly winner still reckons that Leigh will finish 3rd – a convert then from the “Sorry guys” of the earlier long term prediction.
