I can now take a breath after watching Scotland just edge France in a high scoring and tense game at Murrayfield! There was also only 6 points between England and Wales, while Ireland had a far more comfortable day as they thumped Italy.

In our prediction league, I thought last week was a high scoring week, but this week might have hit new records, with just 5 people scoring less than 50 points, while we also saw 3 centurions! The shear size of Ireland’s victory caught quite a few out, but so did the low scoring game at Twickenham. Not all were stumped by the score line’s, as Una Reynolds was within 4 for the Ireland game, Ross Brown was within 5 for the England v Wales game, while James Halliwell was only 3 off the game up in Edinburgh. In the overall scores for the week we had 24 predictors who scored higher than last weeks bottom place! John Whittle illustrated how fickle the league can be, last week he came third with 32 points, this week he was eightieth with 98 points! However, there were still 3 with higher scores, they all broke the 100 mark, regular participant John Rawson was one of these as he tallied 101, debutant Carl Hardcastle went higher than this as he scored 107, but he just avoided bottom spot as that honour this week was reserved for Sebastian White who amassed an impressive 108! Better luck next week Sebastian.

At the top of this week’s table we saw one of the predictor league’s biggest advocates, Mark Bullen, push into the top 10. Mike Rawson, showed the Rawson family how to do it as he found himself in sixth. Robert Scott had his highest ever standing, well done Dad! However, he could only manage fifth with the top 4 showing their forward power as a second row, flanker, hooker and prop took the top spots! Alec Hough, Danny Booth and Wilf Whittle tussled for the number one spot, but the broad shoulders of Joe Shorrock held them off with a score of 40 to win this weeks £10. Well done Joe.

We are still in the early stages, but Andy Snape, after his win last week, still finds himself in the overall lead, he has a 7 point cushion from Rhys Slater, then there is a bunch not far behind. At the other end of the league, not surprisingly we have Sebastian White, but he is not bottom as Carl Hardcastle has saved him from that embarrassment! Carl’s tactic of predicting low scores isn’t working quite yet, he will need to hope for a quick turn around in fortune or I will be needing to buy a wooden spoon sooner than I thought!

Week 2 results
1 Joe Shorrock 40
2 Wilf Whittle 43
3 Danny Booth 44
4 Alec Hough 47
5 Robert Scott 47
6 Mike Rawson 51
7 Ava Thomasson 54
8 John Howard 54
9 Mark Bullen 54
10 Nick Archer 54
11 Nick Westhead 54
12 Una Reynolds 55
13 Rhys Slater 56
14 Tom Long 56
15 Alex Smith 57
16 David Scott 57
17 Emer & Tony 57
18 David Newman 58
19 Olivia Thomasson 58
20 James Halliwell 59
21 Mark Jones 61
22 Alex Evans 2 62
23 Tony White 62
24 Barry Hadwin 63
25 Jill Taylor 63
26 Susan Scott 63
27 Andy Snape 64
28 Derek Taylor 64
29 James Henderson 64
30 Ross Johnson 65
31 Steve Navotni 66
32 Adam White 67
33 Dave Morris 67
34 David Hodgson 67
35 Hannah Johnson 67
36 Tom Lavelle 67
37 Jean Taylor 68
38 Paul Westhead 68
39 Peter Clancy 69
40 Matthew Birbeck 70
41 Tabs Halliwell 70
42 Tony Farley 70
43 Chris Rawson 71
44 Richard Keenlyside 71
45 Leon Fifield 73
46 Stuart Patterson 73
47 Tom Porter 73
48 Richard Bradford 75
49 Rick Maudsley 75
50 Avril Rawson 76
51 Simon Birbeck 76
52 Jack Whalley 77
53 Craig Dootson 78
54 Duncan Isherwood 78
55 Jenny Halliwell 79
56 Jess Newman 79
57 Andrew Smith 80
58 Wayne Thomas 80
59 Liam Roberts 81
60 Fiona Reynolds 83
61 Ross Brown 83
62 Alastair Newman 84
63 Brian Maudsley 84
64 Debbie Porter 84
65 Paul Harling 84
66 Richard Keenlyside 85
67 Roger Taylor 85
68 Steve Kirby 85
69 Austin Clarke 86
70 Jenny Woodward 88
71 Stan Buckley 89
72 John Taylor 90
73 Jack Holden 91
74 Matthew Olyott 92
75 Will Evans 92
76 Dave Lanyon 93
77 Ashley O'Rourke 94
78 Maeve Reynolds 94
79 Alex Evans 1 95
80 John Whittle 98
81 John Rawson 101
82 Carl Hardcastle 107
83 Sebastian White 108

Overall standings
1 Andy Snape 93
2 Rhys Slater 100
3 Ross Johnson 101
4 Joe Shorrock 102
5 Robert Scott 102
6 Danny Booth 104
7 John Howard 104
8 Jill Taylor 105
9 Tony White 106
10 Una Reynolds 106
11 Barry Hadwin 109
12 Alec Hough 110
13 James Halliwell 110
14 Alex Evans 2 113
15 Alex Smith 113
16 Mike Rawson 113
17 Olivia Thomasson 114
18 Ava Thomasson 115
19 David Newman 117
20 Dave Morris 120
21 Mark Bullen 120
22 David Hodgson 121
23 Duncan Isherwood 121
24 Jack Holden 121
25 Paul Westhead 121
26 Tom Lavelle 121
27 Tom Long 121
28 Tom Porter 122
29 Nick Archer 123
30 Nick Westhead 123
31 Wilf Whittle 123
32 David Scott 124
33 Simon Birbeck 126
34 Derek Taylor 128
35 Rick Maudsley 128
36 Hannah Johnson 129
37 Tony Farley 129
38 Andrew Smith 130
39 John Whittle 130
40 Chris Rawson 131
41 Matthew Olyott 131
42 Tabs Halliwell 131
43 Emer & Tony 133
44 Jean Taylor 133
45 Liam Roberts 133
46 Mark Jones 133
47 Peter Clancy 133
48 Adam White 134
49 Matthew Birbeck 134
50 Steve Kirby 134
51 James Henderson 135
52 Wayne Thomas 135
53 Debbie Porter 136
54 Richard Bradford 137
55 Jack Whalley 138
56 Ashley O'Rourke 139
57 Richard Keenlyside 140
58 Austin Clarke 141
59 Craig Dootson 141
60 Ross Brown 141
61 Jenny Woodward 142
62 Leon Fifield 142
63 Paul Harling 142
64 Susan Scott 143
65 Alastair Newman 144
66 Richard Keenlyside 145
67 Stuart Patterson 145
68 Avril Rawson 147
69 Jess Newman 148
70 Steve Navotni 148
71 John Rawson 149
72 Will Evans 152
73 Alex Evans 1 154
74 Dave Lanyon 154
75 Roger Taylor 155
76 Stan Buckley 155
77 Fiona Reynolds 157
78 Brian Maudsley 159
79 Jenny Halliwell 159
80 John Taylor 162
81 Maeve Reynolds 163
82 Sebastian White 168
83 Carl Hardcastle 178