So, here are the fourteen teams safely through, along with their score and margin of victory, and in order of qualification:
- Selwyn College Cambridge (190, 30)
- Oxford Brookes (130, 10)
- Bristol (190, 115)
- Gonville & Caius College Cambridge (305, 200)
- St Peter's College Oxford (205, 55)
- London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (150, 10)
- Liverpool (155, 25)
- Glasgow (190, 70)
- Leicester (245, 55)
- Trinity College Cambridge (150, 50)
- University College London (230, 90)
- Durham (250, 215)
- York (170, 35)
- Magdalen College Oxford (220, 110)
Well, Caius have the highest score of the lot and won by the second biggest margin; Durham have the second highest score and the biggest victory. Leicester and U.C.L. have the next highest, and achieved their scores against much stronger teams. Its been said before that scoring high is all well and good, but if your opponents haven't been that strong, it might not have been entirely down to you.
Therefore, I would probably tip Caius, Leicester and U.C.L. to progress to the QFs, provided they avoid each other. Durham, we'll have to see play against a stronger team before we draw conclusions on their abilities.
The two Oxford teams, Magdalen and St Peter's, could also be favourites to progress; Magdalen probably more so, given that St Peter's won the game largely due to Mr Trueblood's exceptional buzzer showing, and if he has an off-day, the others may not be able to carry themselves through.
The rest of the teams mostly scored between 200 and 150, with various margins of victory. Most of them won by half narrow margins, suggesting equal ability with the opposition. Selwyn, Glasgow and York probably stand out, having achieved their scores against reasonable teams, one of whom made the repechage, and the other two of whom came close to doing so. L.S.H.T.M. could maybe fall in as well, but maybe less so.
On the other hand, first round form has proved a very poor guide to how well a team is going to perform in the later stages in recent years. Take last year: Manchester started averagely, and went on to be one of the best teams of the series and nearly beat the eventual champs, twice! And who'd have thought after watching Queen's play their first match that A: they'd reach the QFs, and B: they'd nearly beat SOAS?
Therefore, the lower scoring teams (Oxford Brookes, Trinity et al) could well pick up their game in the second round; we shall see.
One can never know these things with UC; it's a very unpredictable show. Sometimes it's just a question of which questions you get; a team who struggled with the questions in their heat may have flourished if given those in one of the other heats.
Now, lets move on to the fascinating prospects of the repechage; the teams (potentially) involved are:
- Open (190, 55)
- Manchester (160, 30)
- Sussex (150, 55)
- Exeter (140, 90) or L.S.E. (140, 10)
My guess is that Open will play whoever gets the place, while Manchester will play Sussex. I would tip Open and Manchester to win the matches, Open based on their exceptional showing against one of the strongest teams of the first round, and Manchester on their past tendency to start poorly/averagely, and then hit their stride in their second match.
But these are just thoughts based on rough stats, estimations and past form thoughts, none of which will have any bearing on what is actually to come. All we can hope for is another fine set of second round matches.
I may chose to make a second review post looking at the teams this year, and answer some questions on the diversity of the teams this year and in past years. Shall see if I can find the time.
Hi again! I’ve been keeping watching the series and reading your blogs (which are as delightful as ever) these last few months, but I missed the first few matches of this series for a while because I was in the US. I’ve since caught up, though, and I thought now would be a good time to come back out of hiding.
ReplyDeleteIt’s nice not knowing anything about the outcome of this series, having known almost everything last year! I knew Manchester (as ever), Magdalen and Oxford Brookes would be ones to watch because I’ve met all of them on the quizzing circuit – John Ratcliffe and I also crossed paths last year when he was Manchester’s UC reserve. I’ll tip all of them to go further in the competition, particularly Magdalen. Hugh Binnie is one of the strongest individual quizzers I regularly encounter, with Cameron Quinn and Chris Savory also very formidable forces.
Apart from them, I think it’s safe to say we’ll be seeing Open in round 2, and probably the quarters – having lost to Leicester’s 27/31 (!) bonus conversion, they could be serious trouble for a lot of teams this year. Leicester are probably particularly safe bets for the quarters on this basis. Caius, Selwyn and UCL round off my list of ones to watch, owing to the strengths of their oppositions, and Glasgow look to be pretty good value for the quarters too.
Otherwise, I think you’re right to say that there have been more flattish matches than usual this year, with few of the other winners particularly standing out. That said, if I’d been a contender this year, I would have been much less helpful than in previous first rounds, so the difficulty is certainly up on before. We could be in for some thrillers between these other winners in the rounds ahead, especially if some of them really find their fire, which I hope (and suspect) will happen.
As for the repechage – we privately savoured our friends’ frequent questions last year to the tune of “You’ve got the same score as Loughborough – what will they do if there’s a tie between you for the last repechage place?”! Fortunately, we didn’t need a tiebreaker between us and Loughborough, but suspected that if it had come down to one, our slightly stronger bonus conversion would have seen us taking the place. So, although I’m still not entirely clear on how they do it, I would imagine that Exeter will push LSE off the repechage board, as their bonus conversion was better – and Exeter’s penalties, as Filip suggested last year, perhaps shouldn’t count against them too much, as they demonstrate good boldness on the buzzer. If I’m wrong and LSE go through instead, I will feel so sorry for Exeter’s captain, losing 5 points in the final second of their match!
All in all, I can’t wait to see what comes next, and as ever, I can’t really call a lot of it.
Welcome back!
DeleteSome thoughtful comments as usual. I agree that whichever team gets into the repechage will deserve it, but whoever loses out will probably not deserve to go out. It's a horrible decision to have to make, especially with two such pleasant teams involved.
Hope to hear more from you in the coming weeks!
Hello Cromarty. I must admit I don't know which of the Southampton team you are from your post and haven't read back on this blog enough to identify you, but thanks for the kind words about us (Brookes). Not sure about 'ones to watch', you beat us by a good 300 points in both matches I can remember playing against you!
DeleteI agree with your observations, including that I think Magdalen will be ones to watch. Having played against and with Hugh several times over the last year, I don't think he was on the top of his game in the match vs. Pembroke, same for Chris Savory, though I read somewhere he was ill before filming. I wouldn't want to be in their opposition's shoes in round 2 as I'm sure they will have wanted to up their game in the second round.
In agreement with other observers, I've been impressed obviously with Caius, Magdalen, Leicester, Durham, UCL and Open in the first round. Selwyn too and I thought Liverpool put in a decent performance in what was a very slow match - they would have been up around 200 if the same number of questions had been asked as in some others. Us? We were just happy (and rather surprised) to have a return trip to Manchester to do it all again.
Anyway, all the best.
To clear up the highly anticipated repechage matches, one of the OU contestants has revealed on Twitter that they are playing LSE in their play-off. We still don't know why LSE won the place -- perhaps Paxo will explain that one Monday -- but I can't help but feel Exeter were the stronger team. Though, as you've said, the quality is such that it's a shame to lose either.
ReplyDeleteSorry if that's a spoiler for anyone, but still it should be a great match!
Certainly not a spoiler. Results would be spoilers, fixtures aren't IMO. Unless, of course, if a fixture accidentally gives away a result, which happened with the Radio Times a couple of times over the years. Thankfully, this seems to have stopped now.
DeleteAgree that Exeter were probably the better team of the two overall, but I have no personal problems with L.S.E. taking the place instead. I'd have preferred if they'd done what Fifteen-to-One used to do when they had finals board ties, and hold a play-off off-screen.