Eliminate Or Be Eliminated…and so it begins – Round 12

At the half way point of the season (well halfway point five point) it is time to kick off our classic Eliminate or Be Eliminated posts (check out last years acclaimed diary of TH’s cinderella run all the way to the final 64 here). 

This year things have changed slightly, I have unceremoniously upended TH as the leading DT’er in the DHF stable and will be taking over the Eliminator posts as I detail my week by week progress all the way to being crowned as the last man standing…hopefully.  The watershed moment to this transition came in round 6 as TH and I went head to head in league play and my mighty Kardiac Kids knocked TH’s White Noise in a titanic struggle 2124 – 2083.

The defeat began a downhill spiral for TH, culminating with his knock out from the eliminator last week, managing just 1736.  Afterward TH was quoted as saying he “…felt like a successful Hollywood actor who had just awoken from a 2 year drug binge to find out my career was over and I had no money left in the bank.”  Well I guess that leave the league title to be TH’s version of I will do anything to get attention style Reality TV Show.

Anyway, this is the Kardiac Kids year so let’s get into it.  My squad is currently ranked 775th overall (a bit low after my poor 1868 in round 11), with an average score of 2007 points per round.  I have cruised through the first 6 rounds of the Eliminator with no real concerns (maybe one bead of sweat appeared last week, but that is it).  But with just 2,048 of the initial 131,072 teams remaining, and receiving a lowly eliminator ranking of 1,790 for round 12, I am facing my first real test.

Playing Sreesanth Gold (average around the 1900 mark) the key for me as usual will be the backline matchup.  Feilding a backline of Mackie, Tarks, Fisher, Goddard, Enright, Geary and Grimes, this is where my advantage has come for most of the year.  The same holds true for this matchup, as Sreesanth only has Goodard and Fisher out of that crew, and makes up the numbers with Grima, Dempsey, McPhee, Rance and Harding.

Now unfortunately for me, having the advantage up back can act as a double edged sword.  With premium backs often prone to dud scores, you can face the perfect storm on any given weekend that will nullify the advantage as the likes of Grima rack up bigger scores than Sammy Fisher.  This is my big fear heading into this round, especially when facing an opponent with a mid feild such studs as GABLETT (c), Bartel, Mitchell, Judd, Higgins and Haselby.

On the numbers I should certainly win this round and continue my charge to the $2,000 cash and drink from the premiership cup of the ‘league of champions’.  However there will certainly be some nerves with the following key matchups needing to go my way (my players are on the left vs his to the right):

• My premo backline vs his mixed bag of lollies (need a crushing victory here)
• My Captain Montagna vs His Captain GABLETT (a captain showdown for the ages, why more people don’t have Montagna really needs its own post)
• Kreuzer vs Petrie (battle of the rucks, would be happy if Kreuzer can come close to matching Drew)
• Stevie J vs Roo (really hate not having Roo, but hopefull Stevie can account for his torrid score last round)
• Didak vs Sidebottom (should be a big advantage to me, however Didak hasn’t exactly been consistent this year)

I will keep things updated as the round progresses – feel free to comment on how you are travelling in the Eliminator and hopefully I will be back next week!