Tuesday, June 04, 2013

Blow by Blow - Division 2 - Middle for diddle

James Down is one of two N&R managers based in Atlanta. Your could draw comparisons but I won't. The Archdukes of Hazard was one of my favourite team names but we didn't utter it much at the NR FL Press Office this past season after week 6.

Before week 6 James had made 5 appearances in the top 12 on the back of selecting well, out of the box. He was back in the promotion race in mid-October but somehow between then and November his season fell apart. He dallied with the bottom feeders but rallied to end 24th Div 2, but we were hoping for better. C

Muddy will be pretty pleased with his lot we think. The Happy Hammers stayed up comfortably and Alan was never in any threat of fighting near the bottom. He spent almost the entire season in the environs of mid table and bugger us but he also made some transfers. Whatever next? B

John Hardiman is our man in New Zealand. The ex-QBE man is in his 2nd season and didn't quite have as much success as last time out. John missed out on promotion by just 10 points last season but this time it was more than a couple of hundred points. He made an early change but travelling half way around the world after he left London probably affected his N&R FL performance understandably. C+

Wenners is another long time player and his side was in need of some transfers but he happily knocked around midtable. He did improve on last season by 6 places and did have an early flirtation with promotion. B -

Danny Rose's end of season slide was disappointing. It was a fine start from the fantasy stalwart and he was knocking on the door for some time but around week 30 started to go backwards mostly because of a lack of action in the transfer mark
et. His stock fell and he ended up in 20th, which was a lot better than last year.

The frustrating thing for Dan was that he won three MoW's showing the rest what he is capable of. B-

James Stiff had a slowish start, improved steadily but was never higher than 16th and eventually settled into midtable mojo and finished 19th. A decent first season
but restricted by the lack of transfer activity. C+

Tony Murray again improved his league position. Bottom 3 years ago, 23rd last year and 18th this, there was a little dalliance in the transfer market, but not enough although Tony did collect the week 35 MoW award. B-

After relegation last season more was expected of Huw Thomas especially after such as solid start. Nonetheless it was a pretty non-descript season from our Welshman in Australia. That top 10 finish in 2007/8 does seem like a long time ago. C+

The sanctuary of midtable was Dan Duboux's mantra as well after a pretty dull campaign from the Bluefin broker. He did do better than last year though so he can take some positivity from that. C+

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