i'm in for season 2!
...and just after your announcement, you were able to pull off one of biggest upset wins in HGL so far, as Heywood Big Dogs ($520K top8 salaries, 8 wins and 1 loss before Round 10) collapsed finally on 3rd quarter losing that by 20, and last quarter comeback attempt against Chucarro's Club Trouville (top 8 salaries $216K, 2W-7L before round 10) fell 9 points short of overtime!
To be fair, though, just as Deano25 earlier mentioned, top8-salary is maybe not very optimal in comparing whole team efficiency/competitiveness (as more equally balanced teams in terms of salary might often be more successful, but please remember he's also thinking of the benefit of team Australia, as he is training players for Australian national team), if team has for instance two very expensive players who take massive chunk of the top8 budget.
And HEY has won 2 matches this season only by 1 point, so I guess it was inevitable, that someone else than either of top 2 teams might be able to beat them this season.
Another really tight match was between underdog Madrid Chotis (211K, 4W-5L previously) and Rajdersi (305K, 5W-4L previously) - so another victory for Rajdersi in a tight match. We Finns surely won't forget his recent Round 7 win (against Suuret Muinaiset, by 2 points)... But actually this was already Rajdersi's 5th (!) match of the season, which was decided by 5 points or less (and from those 5 matches 3 wins and 2 losses as a result) - what an exciting Season 1 in Poland so far!
So, no changes in positions on league table after Round 10 of play (if we don't count cosmetical swap of places between SRS and BIG due to scoring difference comparison, but real determining factor between them will somewhat likely be Round 12 match on May 16th), but with an upset win Club Trouville is now a one win ahead of Lielupes Melnas Sirdis and Buckner Bandits in a fight for the last playoff position.
And I guess loss for Heywood Big Dogs made reaching 3rd position on Regular Season feeling bit more realistic for some teams (despite huge top8 salary), as there are now 3 teams within one win of HEY - only team of those that hasn't still lost to HEY and still has a possibility to seal a winning record (and therefore automatically better Regular Season ranking) against HEY is Suuret Muinaiset, as HEY vs. SUM will be played on May 16th!
Rajdersi, currently at 6W-4L also has a match left against HEY on Round 14, so theoretically they also have a chance to finish 3rd, especially as they were able to beat SUM earlier by 2 points and are ahead of SUM if they will end up having equal number of wins... I have a feeling we're going to have couple of interesting equal amounts of wins-kind of situations at the end of the Regular Season! :)
Last edited by Wagner at 5/10/2025 6:34:15 PM