Premiership Predictions Thread 2021-22

[Digby]

If the latest England squad is actually a thing, and the Sarries players use it as motivation, then they're going to be so much stronger in the test windows, way stronger than anyone would have assumed

[Puja]

It's that time again. Time for us all to reveal what everyone suspected all along - that we know absolutely nothing about anything and that our attempts at predicting the future are utterly, utterly risible.

Don't worry though - no-one's going to compile a post mocking all of the worst predictions at the end of the season. Not this year, I promise.

Very nearly ended up telling the truth with how long it's taken me to write this up. Never mind - here is the "eagerly" "awaited" results post:

Premiership Winner:
First of all, congratulations to Scrumhead and Which for picking Leicester, which was quite an impressive prediction from the start of the season. However, people getting it right isn't particularly funny, so let's look at some of the less impressive predictions - like mine! I thought about choosing Leicester, then decided that I was being biased and went for Sale instead. I was in good company, with FKAS, fivepointer, and Shiny also picking the Sharks, although none of them were stupid enough to back it up with picking Solomona for the top try scorer.

Lastly, let's take a moment to appreciate Gloskarlos and Switchskier picking 10th place Bristol as the Premiership winners. It's not like anyone else saw their fall from grace coming either, but we're still going to mock you for it.

Table order:
This was a mess and no-one deserves praise here. Nobody got more than 2 of the top 4 right - very few people believed in Saracens getting there without their depth and nobody picked Saints late run to the playoffs. In addition, there were lots of picks for Exeter, Bristol and Sale getting in.

At the other end, very few people saw Bath going down the drain. I had them lowest at 10th, but there was one prediction (mentioning no fivepointers) that had Bath getting 4th!

Amount of season lost to COVID cancellations:
I actually don't remember whether we lost any games to COVID (despite Worcester's best efforts). I think there may have been one or two in the autumn, but certainly we escaped anything widespread.

European predictions - how will the English teams do?
Two English teams through to the quarter finals was a popular prediction, although I don't think anyone picked those two as being Leicester and Sale. Overall, a resounding "who cares" was the interest in the weirdly formatted competition, although a fair few Leicester fans surprisingly changed their tune as the season went on...

Top try scorer:
Nobody picked any of the players in the top eight - no love for Malins, Murley, McGuigan, Creevy, Freeman, Skosan, Mitchell, or Earl. Fivepointer and Scrumhead did best with picking Hassell-Collins and Muir, who were joint 9th overall.

Thoughts and prayers go out to me and Shiny for both picking players who didn't score a single try (Solomona and Sleightholme), although Shiny at least picked someone who lasted the whole season.

Top points scorer:
Nice boring one here, as four people picked Ford as the top scorer. Which, Scrumhead, FKAS, and me all get a pat on the head for our prescience (and for picking an obvious option).

Surprise of the season:
A lot of people aped me and predicted that Saracens would finish mid-table, which then wouldn't've been much of a surprise if it happened. As it turned out, there was a surprise in that the Vunipolae were never absent with England (and George got a kick up the backside), so they surprised us and finished 4th.

Gloskarlos predicted that there wouldn't be many 50:22s, which I think was accurate, although it did achieve its purpose in that sides definitely kept more players back to prevent them. FKAS predicted that the Quins players would be revolting which was both inaccurate and a bit rude. The worst prediction was Timbo's that the 12-a-side competition would go ahead and feature some stars - anyone remember that thing? Seems to have gone very quiet since their initial bullish announcement.

I think the winner of this one is Scrumhead, who picked Leicester to win as Smith replaces Ford in the England squad.

Biggest disappointment:
Which predicted that the Premiership might be ruined by a lack of relegation, which is somewhat awkward for a Bath fan, but there we are. I picked the summer players failing to kick on to make more England appearances and name-checked Radwan and Blamire - a 50% accuracy rate is far better than I usually do! I think the most prescient here is Fivepointer, who picked "England continue to splutter". Unadventurous as predictions go, but sadly very accurate.

Player having a breakthrough season:
James Harper, Max Ojomoh, and Raffi Quirke were all name-checked a lot, but only the latter really kicked on and his season was blighted by injury before it went too high. No-one mentioned the real breakthroughs - Ollie Chessum and Henry Arundell - but I'd've been highly impressed if they had. Points go to FKAS for picking out Fitz Harding at Bristol.

Best signing:
No-one picked probably the two best signings in Jack Walker and Duhan van der Merwe, although amusingly enough some people picked them for the Schuster/[Redacted] awards. I, of course, was definitely not one of them {quickly edits}

A few pings for Augustus and Hastings Jnr, which were fair enough shouts. Saumaki also noted a few times, but flattered to deceive.

Best unheralded signing:
Let me start off by noting my appalling prediction of Ben Harris, who was so unheralded that I don't think he played more than twice for Saracens. Truly, I do lead you all in my predictive qualities.

On the other end of the scale was FKAS, who pulled out Bernhard Janse van Rensberg, a player who was literally the lowest cost on fantasy rugby at the start of the season and ended up being in just about everyone's squad by the end of it. Kudos.

The [Redacted] Award for lowest performance to hype ratio from a new signing:
We'll skip over the people naming Duhan VDM, whomever they might be, and leap straight to one that's aged like fine milk - Gloskarlos's prediction of Freddie Burns.

Switch and Timbo stars here with the nomination of Danny Cipriani

The Jerome Schuster Award for worst signing:
There were more hits than misses here, although sometimes this award is shooting fish in a barrel. Rory Jennings, Owen Williams, Juan Pablo Socino, Willi Heinz, Nathan Earle - if they managed 10 appearances between them this season, I'd be amazed.

However, we have to have a special mention for Scrumhead, our fantasy champ, picking out Saints' 2nd top tryscorer Skosan as "Travis Ismaiel Mk2" (his semi-final bout of wankhands notwithstanding).



Results:
Well, as per usual, we're a spineless pale pathetic lot, and we haven't got a clue, but somehow I've got to pick a winner out of you. While I'm tempted to name FKAS for their impressive picks of BJVR and Harding, I think it has to go to Which Tyler for picking Leicester to win, Ford to top score, being one of few to pick Saracens in the top four, and at least having Bath in the lower half of the table (which is impressively pessimistic from a Bath fan).

As for the rest of you, thank you very much for playing and hopefully see you again for this in August.

Puja

[Which Tyler]

Do I get a badge?

And thank you for not mentioning my nomination for the worst signing of the season...

I absolutely stand by my nomination of ring-fencing being the biggest disappointment. Entirely personal of course, but it means that I couldn't bring myself to really care that Bath were at the bottom - and really should be in the Champ next year

[FKAS]

Well done Which.

Puja thanks for putting that together and for only remembering me name dropping Fitz Harding and not Morgan Passman who I don't think played a game for Falcons and has now been released.

[fivepointer]

Always fun to go back and see just how wrong you were! Bath a top 4 side wasnt one of my best predictions.

[Mikey Brown]

I guess if you look at the squads on paper were Bath that different a prospect to Leicester?

[Gloskarlos]

I must do better..... much like a few of my school reports. Thanks for spending the time collating that summary.

[Shiny]

Good job, well done to everyone who took part.

[32nd Man]

The logic behind people picking Sale was pretty solid. Semi finalists who'd made some good looking signings.

There will hopefully be some tough questions being asked of Sanderson this summer.

[FKAS]

I guess if you look at the squads on paper were Bath that different a prospect to Leicester?

I fancied that Tigers had better quality in a couple of key areas and more squad depth. That being said the Bath side should have had enough quality to do decidedly better than they did. I guess the main difference in quality was probably the coaching staff.

32nd man, yeah. On paper Sale should have done better. Some off the field issues and injuries to key players certainly hindered them. Then again with Manu in the squad there's always one key player likely to be injured.

[Which Tyler]

I guess if you look at the squads on paper were Bath that different a prospect to Leicester?

On paper, yes, but behind the scenes was always a VERY different matter. especially the complete lack of defence coach, and the incestuous hiring policy in the backroom, with a passionate-but-ignorant Chairman sticking his oar into the on-field stuff.

The logic behind people picking Sale was pretty solid. Semi finalists who'd made some good looking signings.

Sale have had a small, but high quality squad for a while - it's how Diamond liked it, and with Covid, there was little Sanderson could do about that. It was always going to bite them in the arse at some point, it was just a matter of when.