These Championships are set to take place in Aberdeen, Scotland, from Saturday 12 October until Saturday 19 October for 40 international teams with Kosovo and Nigeria making their Mixed debuts. The competitors are split into five groups as follows:

Group A: Belarus, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Hong Kong, Kosovo, Nigeria and Slovakia
Group B: Andorra, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand, Poland and Wales
Group C: Australia, Brazil, Spain, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Sweden and United States
Group D: Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Scotland, Slovenia, Chinese Taipei and Turkey
Group E: Austria, Belgium, England, Finland, France, Korea, Russia and Switzerland

Round-robin play begins at 08:00 on Saturday 12 October and concludes at 20:00 on 17 October after 24 sessions. At the conclusion of the round robin, the top three teams in each group, along with the best fourth-place finisher, will progress to the play-off stage. The teams are then ranked from one to 16 according to their final group placement and Draw Shot Challenge score. The play-off stage begins with the first session of the last-16 knock-out round at 09:00 on Friday 18 October, culminating in the bronze and gold medal games at 15:00 on Saturday 19 October.

Defending champions Canada begin their defence against Germany in the opening session. Ireland open against Slovenia with Scotland against Italy and England versus Austria, all at 12 noon. Wales play Poland at 16.00 with Ireland playing Italy, Scotland playing Japan and England playing France at 20.30.

On Sunday, Wales play Croatia at 08.00 with Scotland v Luxembourg and Ireland v Chinese Taipei scheduled for 16.00, followed by England v Switzerland and Wales v Denmark at 20.30.

England
4 : Stuart Brand (Vice-Skip)
3 : Fiona Spain (Skip)
2 : Jonathan Havercroft
1 : Kathryn Spain
Ireland
4 : John Wilson (Skip)
3 : Ailsa Anderson (Vice-Skip)
2 : Craig Whyte
1 : Niamh Begley Luke
Scotland
4 : Luke Carson (Skip)
3 : Kirstin Bousie (Vice-Skip)
2 : Mark Taylor
1 : Katie McMillan
Wales
4 : Adrian Meikle (Skip)
3 : Dawn Watson (Vice-Skip)
2 : Andrew Tanner
1 : Laura Beever

So a revised Scotland team "steps up to the plate" with lotsa tries plus the bonus pt to set up a massive quali place "up for grabs" v the host nation, Japan, in Yokohama on Sunday. In reality, this Russia side was effectively an amateur RU side that is slowly "finding its way" to a decent standard of international rugby union but "job done" by the Scottish players.

Pts CS CR GB BB SB
B.B.B. 10 1 3 5 -3 0
Sanjay 9 0 4 5 -3 1
A.A.A. 6 0 4 NP -3 1
Zinman 4 0 3 NP -3 1
Beefy 4 0 5 -3 -3 0
Themaclad 1 1 1 -3 -3 1
St Charles 1 0 3 -3 -3 1
Derby 0 0 3 -3 -3 0
Bomber -2 0 2 -3 -3 0

Well this week has to rank as one of the worst overall performances in my time of scoring the Prediction League!!! Nine posters managed to compile a paltry 33 points between them!! There were only 2 correct score predictions and the result at Man City v Wolves caused havoc with the Bonus Ball results and for likely the first week ever every player got their Bonus Ball wrong!!!!

Getting the top score this week, and being the only one in double figures is BBB with 10 points. He was one of 2 players to get a CR on the Gamball and one of only two players to get a CS!! Just a point behind him on 9 points is Sanjay, he was the only other one to get the CR on the Gamball. Bit of a drop to AAA in third place on 6 points, didn’t play the Gamball of course but got it wrong anyway and like Sanjay managed to at least get 4 CRs.

Zinman and Beefy share 4th spot with 4 points each. Zinman didn’t play the Gamball and as predicted he got it wrong anyway!! Beefy did play it and as could have been predicted got it wrong as well!!! He did at least manage to score points on 5 matches, the highest of anyone this week but missing on all his balls cost him!! Not sure this constitutes a comeback but at least he ends in mid-table for the week!! Bit of a drop then down to our league leader Themaclad and SCO in joint 6th with just 1 point each. Themaclad only scored on two matches, neither of which were balls but at least one was a CS and SCO only scored on three. Luckily for both of them the one point they ended up with was the Scoreball, saved them getting a duck!!

In 8th place was Derby, who did end up with a duck and might as well not bothered!!! He got 3 CRs and they were basically cancelled out by getting the Gamball and BB wrong!! Last place this week goes to Bomber, a rare bad week for him saw him end up on a negative with -2 points!! He got 2 CRs but got all his balls wrong to leave him going backwards!!!

Thankfully its the international break this week and I would expect all players will be happy with the rest, but boy there needs to be some changes and tactical work done to make sure this sort of performance is not repeated after the break!!!

Cheers
SCO

   

Themaclad suffered a rare bad week with only a single point and had his lead cut to just 2 points, but the best time to have a bad week is when everybody else does, Zinman reclaiming 2nd, only scoring 4 himself but enjoying a six point swing with Bomber who not only lost a place but also ended with a minus week to drop a little off the pace of the top two.

Sanjay closed up to within a point in 4th enjoying one of the best of a poor set of scores returned from the Premiership this week, as did BBB top scoring this week, sitting in 5th keeping nicely in touch for a tilt at the top, as does AAA who made up the trio of the mid-table men who returned the best scores to close the gap on the top 3. The top 6 are only covered by 14 points heading into the international break.

Our early season stragglers continue to struggle to come up with a decent week between them as SCO in 7th finds himself 13 points away from escaping the perils of the relegation play off place, with Derby another point back in 8th, both will be hoping that they return with batteries charged and fortunes improving before a relegation battle becomes a real possibilty. Beefy meanwhile may have to adjust his targets to maybe a double figure score or even in the teens before he can think about either an 18+ week or climbing off the bottom of the league.

Bomber



Amelia 12pts 0CS 6CR No balls
Lady Jane 9pts 1CS 3CR 5GB -3BB 1SB
Twerton 7pts 1CS 3CR -3GB 3BB 1SB
Baggie_One 4pts 1CS 4CR -3GB -3BB 0SB
Snooty 4pts 0CS 5CR -3GB -3BB 0SB
Stairs 1pt 0CS 3CR -3GB -3BB 1SB
MightyBrom 1pt 0CS 2CR 0GB -3BB 0SB
Joker -3pts 0CS 0CR 0GB -3BB 0SB

A very difficult week for the Championship - in fact I suspect that the total points scored in the division was lower than any previous week this season. Correct scores were at a premium - only 3 in total and the balls proved equally difficult with just one positive score on each of the gamball and bonus. We weren't helped by our friendly neighbours, Man Utd's continuing ineptitude, Spurs apparent implosion and Huddersfield's sudden impersonation of a football team. In fact the only reliable source of points this week came from our beloved Baggies with their game being the only one to accumulate more than 8 points for the Championship contenders.

Leading this week's table is Amelia with a week's high of 6 correct result predictions (though no correct scores). She was the only player to achieve double figures though may have missed out by not playing the bonus and score balls. Lady Jane makes it a 1 2 for our female competitors - only 3 correct predictions but one of them was the gamball (shame on you for predicting a Villa win) and she also managed this week's rare feat of getting a correct score. Twerton wisely put his bonus on Albion and secured third place as a result.

BaggieOne and Snooty are locked together in mid-table though with only 4 points. B1 gained from a correct score on Sunday's late game and Snooty's blind faith in Huddersfield finally paid off as he at least managed to stagger into positive territory for the week.

Stairs and MightyBrom were coming off a couple of very good weeks but came down to earth with a crash as they could both only manage a single point. Joker posted late and missed all of Saturday's games - if he hadn't posted at all he would have ended up with zero points for the week. Instead he chose to predict Sunday's games, got them both wrong and finished on minus 3 due to his bonus. I can only guess he and Beefy (another late poster) were "otherwise engaged" on Saturday morning.

Zin

   

Twerton stretches his lead this week to 9 points and is just a couple of points shy of the 100 mark for the season. It goes to show his consistency this year when you compare that it took him till week 15 to top the ton last season, while BaggieOne slips back into 2nd as the nearest challenger and enters the 2 week break holding on to one of the automatic promotion spots.

Joker more or less gave up that place by missing out the whole of Saturdays games and coming unstuck with the Manchester giants demise on Sunday, the fact that he's now predicted 16 games less than his rivals could be costing him dear, not only now but more importantly at the end of the season, the lead over Lady Jane in 4th is down to just a solitary point after what turned out to be a decent week for her.

Mightybrom, in 5th was another to have his advantage cut to a single point by Amelia up a place back into 6th who matched her best effort of the season so far and came out as the weeks top scorer having surely saved herself 6 points by leaving out the feature balls.

Stairs made way slipping back to 7th with just a point to show for his efforts this week, while Snooty had one of his better weeks, albeit the ones recently didn't take much bettering to sit at the bottom still adrift by 40 points.

Bomber

According to the Mail we have the opportunity to buy Pereira for £9m at the end of the season. The player has already agreed terms. Christmas has come early in West Bromwich!

https://twitter.com/i/status/1180811396151422977

2 points for a correct result
4 points for a correct score
2 points for each correct scorer
Correct joker doubles your score       
Wrong joker result gives you minus 2
Correct Random Badger gives you 2 points

The random badger is used for any random prediction used once in each matchday sequence. For instance, a scorer at a particular match, the number of red cards in the matches or yellow cards or own goals or owt you want really within reason, I do need to be able to check whether it's correct or not. Please don't put stuff like....."Commentator says...."  
The joker   is played for one match in each sequence and if correct you get double points. So if you've predicted 1-0 and it finishes 2-0, you get 4 pts, but if you've predicted 2-0, that's 8 pts. But if you get it wrong, it's minus 2.
Jokers and badgers are optional. You don't have to play one if you don't want.


Cup games:
In the event of a draw, it's half the points if you've predicted a draw when it gets to 90 mins and the full points if it's still a draw after extra time. Half the points will be awarded for correctly predicting the winner of the match if it goes to penalties.

Random score generator: I will be using the random score generator again for those who miss predicting, so we shouldn't get some people too far behind that after missing a couple of weeks they lose all interest, because I know it's not easy getting on here every week.
To be fair to everybody, this is going to be like, say if three people in one week miss their predictions, the first one in the table will be given all 0-0, the second one down the line will get 1-0 and the third will get 0-1 and so on, like if there's four missing the 4th will get 1-1, then 5th 2-1, 6th 1-2. and if there are so many missing, might as well pack in.
And if you miss two weeks on the trot, I'll stop until you come back on again. Not doing it for half a season like I did t'other year.  

Thursday 10th October:
Euro qualifying:
Netherlands v Northern Ireland
Slovakia v Wales
Russia v Scotland

Friday 11th October:
Czech Republic v England
England scorers:

Saturday 12th October:
Georgia v Republic of Ireland (14:00)

Sunday 13th October:
Wales v Croatia (19:45)
Scotland v San Marino (17:00)

Monday 14th October:
Bulgaria v England
England scorers:

Tuesday 15th October:
Switzerland v Republic of Ireland

Bonus matches:
Saturday:
League 2:
Morecambe v Bradford City

Sunday:
League 1:
Coventry City v Tranmere Rovers (12:00)

Table after Matchday 10:
jjamez = 226 pts
neonfoxinthebox = 216 pts
themaclad = 216 pts
Amelia Chaffinch = 213 pts
theo_luddite = 212 pts
SHEP_HTAFC = 200 pts
Baggiebob(BBB) = 197 pts
ritchiebaby = 192 pts
St Charles Owl = 192 pts
Lord Snooty = 183 pts
Beefy 1965 = 147 pts

So Celtic's 1st loss in 27 consecutive domestic matches happens on an artificial pitch on a rainy day in West Lothian. So Rangers will likely top the Premiership at the end of Sunday afternoon - can't see any slip up v lowly Hamilton Accies!! Ryan Christie receiving a "rare" straight yellow card for an "over the top" challenge on Robinson and it was a deserved punishment from ref, Gollum! However, I can't figure how a player, with no history for this type of offence, would do this and let down all his team mates and management/coaching staff?? Bizarre! But giving opponents like Livy a player advantage on their artificial pitch is not recommended!! Also noticeable that Celtic dropping league pts before and after Euro footie commitments and that is no coincidence (deja vu!) but just part of the ambition of a big Scot footie club trying to compete on as many "footie fronts" as possible.

If you do your predictions after these specified times, they will not be accepted.

Weekend games 12 pm
Midweek games 7:30 pm

Just a reminder that you can use your    on any fixture, but its not compulsory!! Get it right and you will score double points but getting it wrong will result in -2 points, so the reward and risk are there for all!!

Tuesday 8th October

AFC Fylde 2-2 Chesterfield
Aldershot Town 1-0 Dover Athletic
Barnet 2-1 Bromley
Barrow 3-0 Boreham Wood
Eastleigh 2-2 Maidenhead United
Ebbsfleet United 0-3 Torquay United
FC Halifax 6-0 Chorley
Notts County 2-0 Dagenham & Redbridge
Solihull Moors 2-0 Sutton United
Wrexham 0-2 Harrogate Town
Yeovil Town 2-1 Woking

Wednesday 9th October
Stockport County 2-0 Hartlepool United

League Table after Matchday 15
Amelia = 216
Dancing = 200
Theo = 186
SaltergateBorn = 162
St Charles = 152
Lord Snoots = 150
Spireitematt = 134
Devon = 98

oh deary me
bloody tabloid journalists(i use that term tongue in cheek)
crisis at Man U
crisis at Spurs
Newcastle etc etc etc

who(apart from those clubs supporters)give a flying bats crap?
reading the papers(well looking at the pictures)you would think the world of football is grinding to a sudden halt

lets face it Man U have been in decline for a while
Spurs aint a team at all=kane plus a few guests
Newcastle=say no more

at least after this weekend we get a break from the premier league crap

aint we glad we aint part of the crap league