Well, we began the series with a low scoring international match between Scotland and Northern Ireland. Tonight, we had another between Wales and England. So that balances out nicely, I guess.
Cardiff University began life as a University College in 1883, and later became part of the University of Wales, becoming independent in 2005. It last sent a team three years ago, where they lost a great match to Oxford Brookes on a tie-break, but survived to the play-offs where they lost to Exeter (bit of a grudge match tonight then). Hoping to get the uni its first UC victory since 1998, and also become the first Welsh team to win a series, were:
Eleri Evans, studying Maths
Sara Caputo, from Torino in Italy, studying History
Captain: Roderick Lawford, from Barking, studying Music, Culture and Politics
Tom Parry-Jones, from St Asaph, studying Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies
Exeter University was founded in 1955, though it began life as many different colleges which subsequently merged. In 2009, their UC team recorded the lowest ever score under Paxo, when Gail Trimble and co thrashed them 350-15; last year's team lost to eventual runners-up U.C.L. in the first round. Playing for them tonight were:
Tom Nelson, from London, studying French, Spanish and Portuguese
Finn Sharpe, from London, studying English
Captain: John Earle, from Exeter, studying History
Martin Gentile, from Taunton, studying Physics
Off we set again then. The first two starters fell to Exeter, but just one bonus followed. The next three starters were dropped, before Cardiff got off the mark. The first picture starter was dropped too, with Cardiff later getting the bonuses, on national flags featuring animals. They now led by 35-20.
Another starter went to Cardiff, before we got three dropped starters in a row, two of which saw Cardiff drop points. Finn Sharpe finally got a starter right, allowing Exeter to close the gap to five points. The music round, on the settings of musicals, went to Cardiff, and they led by 60-40 afterwards.
The next starter was added to the 'dropped' list, with Exeter incurring a penalty. They did recoup the points with the next starter, and a full set of bonuses tied the scores. Another dropped starter followed, before Tom Parry-Jones pulled Cardiff ahead again. The second picture round, on recipients of peace awards from the Soviet Union, went to Exeter, and the scores were now level, 75-each.
No chance of the repechage being troubled tonight, unless the teams got a move-on. Roderick Lawford identified Scott Joplin to pull Cardiff further ahead, earning a complex set of bonuses on words that are contained within the names of EU countries. Yeah, much easier when heard, that one. Another starter for Cardiff finally pulled them into three figures, and a full set of bonuses might just have been enough to win the match.
Or was it? An incorrect interruption for the Welsh side allowed Exeter back into the match, and a set of bonuses on four-letter place names in England pulled them to just five away from three figures. But that was as close as they could get, as Cardiff took the remaining starters; a late amusing moment saw Sara Caputo just manage to stop Mr Lawford in time to correct him on an answer! And that was it: the gong went within seconds of that, and Cardiff won, 145-95.
Well, I guess we were due a low scoring affair like that, where neither side really got into second gear; Paxo was correct when he said Cardiff's score was not very high, but it was sufficient. Well done to them anyway. Eleri Evans and Tom Parry-Jones got three starters each, and 14 correct bonuses out of 26 is fair enough. Finn Sharpe and John Earle got two each for Exeter, and 9 correct bonuses out of 18 is also fair enough. The problem was too many starters were dropped (with Cardiff incurring three penalties, and Exeter two); I haven't counted how many, but it was quite a lot to say the least.
Safely through to the repechage: Durham (170) and one of Loughborough and Southampton (155)
Next week's match: St John's College Oxford vs Downing College Cambridge. That's the seventh Cambridge team this series, compared to the fifth from Oxford. Later this week, I will have a look at the situation of multiple Oxbridge teams in another essay, I hope.
Tonight's Only Connect featured the much loved UC alumnus Jamie Karran, who captained U.C.L. to the semis two years ago, appear alongside two other UC almuni, one from his team, the other from another. Didn't see much of the match, but they won after a recovery in the missing vowels. Well done to them; hope they can do as well as they did in UC!
Cardiff (137), Exeter (108). I was going to say that those seem kind of high, but actually, their bonus conversion was pretty good - they were just awful on the starters. Out of the 26 asked, only 15 were answered correctly. It's a bit strange; I don't think I've ever seen a pair of teams do so well on the bonuses while failing so badly on the starters.
ReplyDeleteCan't say I expect Cardiff to go very far, but we'll see.
I had a feeling that this rematch between two old UC rivals would be fascinating, and it was, but not necessarily for all the right reasons!
ReplyDeleteI was supporting Cardiff partially because Exeter eliminated their (rather good) team back in the 2010-11 series, but mainly because I applied to Cardiff as one of my five universities of choice. As with Bath, I was eager to see how well I could have done if I had ended up at Cardiff and got onto their team. The answer, as in the Bath game, was “not very well”! When I failed to notice that the dogs on that Spanish region’s flag were indicative of the Canaries, I was metaphorically kicking myself very much.
That said, there were simply too many dropped starters in this game for it to really take off. In particular, when Exeter incorrectly guessed “chiro” for the Greek letter starter (he was understandably thinking of chiroptera and giving the wrong response) and then Cardiff failed to pick up on chi, I was cringing! They were pretty lucky not to get Paxmaned at that point!
I think it was slightly unfair of Paxo to berate Cardiff for what he thought was a relatively lacklustre winning score – not only because they were perfectly competent on the bonuses, but because I’ve seen several other teams in recent series get away with much lower winning totals. Nevertheless, I fear we may be saying goodbye to them soon unless they up their game on the buzzers. I wouldn’t put it past them to do so – look at Bangor last year, who won their first game with 125 points and then went on to take quite a few high-profile kills before bowing out in the semi-finals!
A few final thoughts on this game relate to the Exeter team. My sister has just said that Finn Sharpe looked very familiar – does anyone know if he’s been on another game show recently? Meanwhile, back in January, when we were auditioning to get onto this series, two of our team were in the same audition timeslot as the Exeter quartet. We’ve been waiting ever since then to find out what happened to them. 95 is, at least, a lot better than 15.
And isn't it coincidental that among the Exeter team were contestants called Earle and Sharpe (the Keele team this year also boasted these two names among their ranks) and also Nelson (as in Pembroke, Cambridge), and now all the Earles, Sharpes and Nelsons are out of the competition?
I was kicking myself over the Canaries too! At least we got the bonuses, since flags are usually a speciality of mine.
Delete