West Div 1 Predictions

[mandy]

Who can top the West and face off against the winners of the East for their premier spot?

Can one of the new teams upset the club sides expected to challenge for honours?

Who's going to be looking at the trapdoor come the end of the year?

[Tom_Southampton]

Got to vote for your own team really

[mandy]

Got to vote for your own team really

or you could vote for who you think is going to win the league!

[Tom_Southampton]

nah,

[Ash]

probably a cardiff win me thinks.

predicted order from me, Probably completely wrong especially the order of the bottom 4!

Reckon a reasonably tight top 3 as well this year, with a strong bristol i reckon as they have 3 teams in the city and I've heard they've made the odd acquisition.

1. Cardiff Harlequins
2. Bath
3. Bristol City Bombers
4. Southampton City
5. Cheltenham Cougars
6. Portsmouth Uni
7. Warwick Uni
8. Southampton Uni
9. Bristol Uni Sharks
10. Exeter Uni

Cardiff to win the league and get promoted to the prem i reckon.

[Mort rotu]

Oh ye of little faith Ashley, did they break your head as well as your collar bone?

i dont think that Soton uni will come below P'mouth, personally.

i also recon that 4th n 5th on your predictions will be a hard run race.

i will agree with your quins prediction tho.

[Tom_Southampton]

Mr Mort,
depends who's been hit by graduation hardest,
portsmouth are losing quite a few starters but so too are Soton Uni. although there is still a strong spine
it also depends how many of the first team play on saturdays given that the intention is to focus on BUSA
should be close

[Soton_Jeds]

Dang that is a competitive and hard league. Not really up to date with the East league but i would say that this is where the East v West playoff winner will come from.

Im going to put my money on Cardiff to take it. not sure with Ash's prediction on 2 and 3 they could go either way, and the same for 4 and 5.

Not going to say who will be fighting above the trap door tho.

[Ash]

I'd agree on 4 and 5! just got to have a bit of ambition, heard a couple of rumours of players at cheltenham who aren't certainties for next season. Cheltenham always work hard and play some good lax though.

The most encouraging thing is the number of club teams now in the division!

[Tom_Southampton]

Depends on the amount of time the remaining senior players have i think.
the decisions at the AGM were to concentrate on BUSA and use the SEMLA side to give more opportunities to the less experienced players. If all the senior players play saturdays then they should be ok, if none of them do then they'll struggle

[Freddie]

Just to put The Sabres into perspective, how close to full strength was your bluefest team?

[Tom_Southampton]

so-so
we've got some more players available/will be available across the park (with any luck)

we'll see

[Soton_Jeds]

I think we were missing a few first teamers - i would say 3-4 extra players that would possibly be starters. plus a few more that have been picked up along the way since.

[fresher309]

if warwick are able to keep hold of some of their players from last year they may be a challenge. I rekon the top 4 will be Cardiff, Bath, Bristol and Chelt (in no particular order) Just depends on who recruiting goes over the summer etc.

Although obv very happy that the west is looking v competative, it is annoying that only 1 team can go up, as i rekon the 4 teams mentioned would win E1 at the mo (maybe have an extended play off of 1st in W1 vs 2nd in E1, and 1st in E1 vs 2nd in W1 for next year) Just a thought.

[david s]

Warwick are actually putting in a 2nd's team, with our firsts playing BUSA. We'll have a few experienced players in the line up, but it will be mostly used to help our fresher development and provide our 2nd team with regular games.

[Soton_Jeds]

That makes it sound like Warwick are doing exactly what southampton uni are planning.

It does show good depth at the fact sooo many teams are going for BUSA and yet have a strong local team for the weekends. Should be a great season, i cant wait.

[jonfast]

I'm confused as to why the teams are being split? Surely BUSA fixtures are at least predominantly on Wednesdays.. Do people not wanna play twice a week or something?

[Tom_Southampton]

no i think some people don't necessarily,
all other things being equal i'm sure most people would love to however there are always other pressures on life.
i suspect in practice in Southampton a lot of people will make themselves available for both but the official position is that the BUSA team is the priority, which makes sense as its a winnable competition (every team is in the same boat as far as players are concerned) whereas most uni sides suffer against club programs due to the high player turnover

[J-Lo]

Warwick are actually putting in a 2nd's team, with our firsts playing BUSA. We'll have a few experienced players in the line up, but it will be mostly used to help our fresher development and provide our 2nd team with regular games.

Shouldn't that be the otherway around? Busa is just a side show.

[Tom_Southampton]

obviously its everyones own choice but to my mind no, it isn't for the following reasons
1. Other institutions are already taking it more seriously than SEMLA (Oxford for example)
2. Its winnable, every university goes through the cyclic situation where they lose players, build up a team and have a lot of seniors on the team and do well. As clubs don't do this its difficult to compete with them.
3. at a lot of unis lacrosse funding is dependant on BUSA performance (thankfully never the case at southampton) so they have to focus their efforts in that direction.

luckily i think it wont really change things too much as players that want to play 2 games per week can be funnelled into club sides, this summer we've seen Bath, Southamton, Birmingham, Hull and Northampton form club sides out of uni teams which has got to be good for the long term future of the game