Four weeks. One month.  Thirty three tipsters, and no one left who has managed to predict ONE winner per week...

There were three in the running this weekend, and all three waited until the last game of the weekend, the 'gimmy game', Taranaki heading to Pukekohe to roll the winless (until now) Counties Manukau Stealers.

There were a few close calls though, if Otago could have found a goal kicker, and somehow managed to keep Wellington's Kirkpatrick on the field longer, then we might have seen the first mass suicide of the season, with eight deaths.  However, somehow the Ranfurly Shield stayed with the holders, while the big golden 'O' headed back south sans Shield, but with an NPC bonus point.

Congratulations ...KIRWAN

Righto kids, it's down to the final three Mullet, Kirwan and BayImports.  All three survivors have yet to select the Crusaders or Cheetahs, and both Mullet and BayImports have the Bulls as well.
What will be intriguing is to see if any of them risk selecting the Cheetahs before the final round.
Let's meet the final three, with odds supplied by the Competition Committee.

ROUND 8 DEATH TOLL : 1

5 different strategies were employed this week and for the most part these strategies paid off.
13 of the starting 14 players made it through to round 9, making it the most successful round ever.

CAUSE OF DEATH
Jimmy Gopperth's decision to consistently kick the ball away while the Blues were trailing the Waratahs was the cause of our first death from last week, TIM.

The next sweeping torrent of death happened when the Highlanders came out of nowhere to rampage all over the Bulls in the Palmerston North sunshine. Everyone watching the game yelled "Superb!", "Brilliant!" & "Sublime!"

ALL ENTRIES MUST BE RECIEVED NO LATER THAN 12 HOURS BEFORE KICK OFF IN THE OPENING MATCH OF THE ROUND, OKAY? This will be the hard and fast rule from now on.
12 HOURS ... not 1 hour .... not 30 minutes, not even 5 hours. 12 ...That's a dozen. Any late entries will be automatically awarded the bottom placed active team on the S14 table.

2  (Mr & Mrs Gibbit. Round 5's only victims)...

CAUSE OF DEATH
First the Bain's now the Gibbits. Jesus New Zealand, haven't we had ENOUGH of these family massacres?

Whilst writing up the Round 5 preview article GIBBIT had included thoughts that many people were being boring and only choosing whichever team played the Cheetahs.

This week's death toll was 3.

CAUSE OF DEATH
Bartman & D_Up didn't send an entry in for this round so they were given a default pick of the lowest ranked team, the Cheetahs.
This is a new and on-going rule that we here at the Rules Committee thought up during the week. We felt that rather than defaulting completely it was better to at least have a 'punchers chance' of surviving a round.

Of the 6 teams that players chose only the Waratahs, Bulls and Reds won and took their Ferners through to Round 4.

MN5 and Corkscrew were the only two players who did NOT choose the Stormers, Sharks or Force this week.
Conrad Smith's 79 minute try was another boot in the nuts for the Highlanders who lost the match 22-17.

We start the year with a field of 45 players.  This week 35 of you have chosen either the Bulls or the Lions , so if either of them lose or draw that will kill of roughly 75% of our players and make for a boring season.

Here are the teams and which Ferners have chosen them for SuicidePool this week.

If you’ve never done a suicide pool before here is how it works,
You pick one team per week.
If your team wins, you advance to the next week.
If your team loses, or draws, you’re done for the year. Dead. Gone. Finito
Oh, and you can only pick a team to win ONCE. That bit is the cool tricky bit
Last TSFer standing wins the exciting PRIZE (that I haven't gone and bought yet...but it might be mildly awesome).