BUAFL National Championship Guest Prediction: The All Seeing I

Newcastle Raiders (11-0) v Birmingham Lions (11-0)

The All Seeing I

Running the Double wing is the equivalent of sitting in front of your TV on Christmas Morning 1994, playing on your brand new NES, with the Duck Hunt cartridge inserted, and the lazer gun in your sweaty mits. After getting frustrated with the game on level 12, you sidle up to the TV, and point the gun 1 inch from the TV screen. Before you know it, you’re at level 50, and have very sore eyes… Ultimately, It’s not cheating, but there’s something not quite right about it.

Double Wing is the Smack of British Football – your friends and family will tell you not to get into it, your girlfriend will cry herself to sleep worrying about you, counselors will warn you that it’s addictive and dangerous. They’ll try and force you to rehab, and point the way to a West-Coast Scheme, even run and gun. As a last resort the offer you the methadone kick of Triple Option. They’ll all tell you that you’re becoming a football pariah and a social exile, yet you don’t care… It makes you feel invincible, feel powerful, feel loved…

The Birmingham Lions have crushed all before them; behind the arm of Tristan Varney and the endless clichés of Coach Athersmith (yeah?), the Lions have cruised to an unbeaten record, swiping even the mightily of their perches. If the Double Wing is Smack, then the Birmingham Air Raid is Cocaine - it fills you with bravado and arrogance, you feel popular, almost messianic, when in reality everyone is slowly deleting you from their phone books, and removing you from facebook. Does that sound familiar Lions?

Now, they’re at the Championship Game (or the CHamPionSiP GaMe for the xpLosION crowd) with the chance to win only their second ever title. For a team full of bluster, they’ve consistently underachieved – this is their chance to be the once bullied kid to get their own back on the big, bad league. None more than angry dwarf Richard (call me RJ) Stockdale – for years derided as a half-man, half-Lego brick, labouring away in Hull-on-Earth – he now has a chance with the big boys (well everyone’s bigger than him) to get his shot at immortality.

So, in this match up, we have the archetypal contradiction in terms - a perfectly likeable team, made truly unlikable by a 'running scrum' offense, against a contemptible team, made all the much more bearable by the way they play football. It's not about North and South anymore, it's about what side your bread is buttered.

So, let’s break this down.

Birmingham can seemingly score at will, until they come up against an all-pro defense - they didn't exactly struggle against Southampton, but they didn't torch them for 100+ points (take a bow Barracuda). Similarly, Newcastle looks good against poor-to-average defenses, but don't find the going quite as easy against better drilled outfits.

Yes the Air Raid is wide open and high octane, but the Double Wing has poked more holes into opposition defenses, than Coach Johnson has in his Johnson. It's brutally effective, in rolling over teams who aren't savvy enough, and still hard-nosed enough to get at least 3 yards a carry against decent opposition who have scouted the bejesus out of it. Look at the Aces - they stopped Goka, but couldn't stop the endless waves of Raiders sustaining drives on 4th and short.

This MIGHT be decided at the coin toss - Birmingham win, and they torch Newcastle, it might force them to force the issue on 4th and short. Stopping them there could (and probably would) result in another Lions score. At 12 points down, the Raiders would have to do something different, and the pressure would be on.

If the Raiders win the toss, the pressure would be off, and they could valuable time off the clock, marching down, accruing 3 yards a carry, and putting points on the board. The best that Birmingham could do, would be to equal the score. Thus it continues until one team makes a mistake.

Yes the Lions have a great defense, but you can have the best defense in the world, it doesn't mean that you can stop the wing. The beauty of it is that you can get more people at the point of attack than defenders - unless that defender is Ray Lewis, which means they’ll get what they need over 4 downs.

This is going to be closer than people give it credit for - it'll be tight at the half, before the Lions pull away. I'm going for a 34-16 Lions win, and for the crowd to leave Leeds with the kind of same kind of soulless, listless feeling you get after watching disturbing porn.

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