Power Rankings | BUCS 2018/19 Week Five: Division Two
The BUCS season is upon us, and so our Power Rankings return along with your opportunity to have your say on how things stack up across the three tiers of the University game!
We’re collating this year’s rankings via the highly successful format used this past summer - polling not only our own team of BUCS correspondents but also giving all of our passionate Patreon supporters the opportunity to determine how these rankings stack up!
Each contributor submitted their own picks of who’s top dogs in each tier, and then we tallied it all up to create these amalgamated rankings!
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With the most teams to compete for just ten spots, it’s expected we’re gonna see some big shifts week-in-week-out in the Division Two rankings.
As such, it’s perhaps not too surprising that we see THREE new teams emerge in the top ten following the Week Five results!
Cut:
Heriot-Watt Wolverines - After a promising start to the season, Heriot-Watt couldn’t get things going against nearest rivals, Edinburgh. A crowded contest to earn a top ten spot means this first loss, particularly while being shut out, is enough to drop the Wolverines out of the rankings.
Royal Holloway Bears - the Bears returned from their lengthy break, but found themselves lacing claws against the Regents last weekend. The 2-14 loss sets up an effective three-way overlapping tie at the top of the 2A South, so expect things to get interesting as the season reaches its peak!
Lincoln Colonials - their impressive win over the Legion had allowed them to sneak into the #10 spot for two weeks in a row, but after a late-game collapse to the Eagles the Colonials march right out of the Power Rankings! With the Eagles and Stallions both putting in big performances, it could be a big ask for the Lincoln side to fight their way back into the spotlight.
Honourable Mentions:
Though they placed highly in some of our pollsters’ rankings, others snubbed them, and as such the KCL Regents ended up quite possibly only one more mention away from being a top ten team this week! Their win over the Bears certainly makes things interesting in the 2A South, with the top three teams currently possessing overlapping head-to-heads and meaning, with all the confusion, the conference ends up without a single team in the top ten!
10. Liverpool Raptors ( Down Two )
Though the Vikings held their own through the early part of the fixture, the latter part of the game was all Liverpool, and so the Raptors advance to their first winning-record of the season.
They host the Bombers this Sunday with an opportunity to build on their back-to-back wins.
9. Staffordshire Stallions ( New Entry )
The Stallions made short work of the Hawks on Sunday, and with two shut out wins in their most recent outings will go into the Christmas break as one of the hottest looking teams in the tier.
Their biggest issue is simply the fact that the MMU Eagles continue to find ways to win, overshadowing the Stallions thanks to MMU’s one-point victory back in Week Three!
8. York Centurions ( Down One )
The Centurions hold on to their rankings spot having completed a 3-0 start to their season. We’ll see them again in the new year… but they might need results elsewhere to go their way to still be ranked by then!
7. Bournemouth Bobcats ( New Entry)
Our second outfit making their Power Rankings debut this week are the Bournemouth Bobcats, who completed their collection of Oxford scalps last Sunday when they shutdown the OBU Panthers.
They got their campaign off to a particularly late start, not playing their first fixture until Week Four, but have so far put up confident wins in both their outings.
They can make it three for three and emerge as serious contenders in the South West if they put up another W when they visit the Gloucestershire Gladiators this weekend!
6. Essex Blades ( Down One )
The Blades made short work of the Rhinos in Week Five and will head into the Christmas break undefeated and having conceded a mere 8 points through three fixtures.
They’ll have noted the Pythons also putting in some good performances in the past few weeks, so perhaps our pollsters are waiting for these two teams to meet for a second time before placing the Blades too highly? Certainly, South East teams do seem to traditionally struggle once they hit the postseason, so perhaps that’s why Essex remain mid rankings despite three convincing victories?
5. MMU Eagles ( New Entry )
And our highest debut programme of the week, the MMU Eagles fly into the rankings in the #5 spot after a flurry of fourth-quarter scores gave them a shut out win over the Lincoln Colonials.
It’s the Eagles third win on the trot, and certainly their most convincing! They head to the break undefeated atop the 2A Midlands, and will return to what appears the softer section of their schedule - three fixtures against teams that have so far combined for only two wins between them.
4. Bristol Barracuda ( Down One )
Inactivity sees the ‘Cuda drop a spot, as the Bulldogs didn’t show up for Sunday’s Week Five Fixture.
We’ve since learned however that the game has been awarded Bristol’s way, so Barracuda head into the break 4-0!
They return from midseason to take a trip to the Bobcats… which is shaping up to be a potentially very intriguing and meaningful match up! Game of the Week material, even!
3. Edinburgh Predators ( Up One )
A nice shutout victory for Edinburgh moves them into pole position in the 2A Borders, conceding just a single score so far giving them the edge over similarly 3-0 York.
Dispatching their closest rivals allows the Preds to climb back into the top three - we’ll next see them on the other side of the break, with their reschedule matchup versus YSJ in Rain Week.
2. Worcester Royals ( = )
A weekend off has done nothing to shift Worcester out of the #2 spot, and they’ll potentially look to contest the top spot in these rankings if they can impress when they take a trip to the Solent Redhawks this weekend!
Both outfits are coming into this one off the back of wins over the Gladiators, but the Royals was by a much more sizeable margin and so are surely favourites to advance to 4-0 this Sunday?
1. Leeds Gryphons ( = )
Another week, another #1 ranking for the Gryphons - despite the fact we haven’t seen them since Week Three!
In fairness, they just barely clung on to their top spot this week, and so will need to impress when they host Aberystwyth this Sunday, else face a slide down the rankings going into their midseason break.
