Whilst most of the NLC players were taking each game as it came and concentrating on simply making it through the season, Doctor Kirby was keeping a beady eye on the stats. Here’s his end of season statistical round up.
Well that wasn’t bad for the first year. This report is intended to be read with the accompanying spreadsheet covering all the matches (see below).
Performance in the Hamilton Russell
The first point to make is that the Hamilton Russell matches were much harder than the friendlies. The NLC team scored just nine points over the eight matches (out of a possible of 48 points). Of these, 3.5 points were scored by our good friends from the Lansdowne picking up points down the order. Mister Taylor was our top scorer on the dizzy heights of two points! Mister Trivedi and Doctor Schady were the top NLC scorers with 1.5 points. Tough games – every point and half point was hard fought.
Here is the final Hamilton Russell table (taken from the excellent Hamilton Russell website):
So we finished last. We’ve played some chess, explored other people’s Clubs and generally enjoyed ourselves. As we’ve decided to prioritise the Hamilton Russell next year, it means pickings might be thin on the ground. But it’s all about converting potential losses into draws and draws into wins. Let’s see if next season we can gather more than this season’s nine points. (Avoiding whitewashes is also good. One of the results of the season for me was Doctor Schady beating Colin Ferguson of the EIC / ORI team and sparing us a 0-7 hammering).
Inter-club friendlies
Things were considerably easier in the friendlies, with Mister Widdicombe, Mister Hamme, Master King and Mister Whiteley all scoring more than 50 per cent for the NLC, and Mister Taylor knocked in 2/2 from the Lansdowne. There will be friendlies next season. We want matches against the Roehampton and Lansdowne (who don’t play in the Hamilton Russell) and there may be other friendlies arranged.
So that’s it for this season. Use the summer wisely and hopefully we can do better next year!
Doctor Kirby has produced this comprehensive statistical compendium: