by Some good news: our team did win the interclub competition for our grade.
In Wellington they split the season into two competitions – pre-Christmas, where we finished mid-table, and post-Christmas, where we finished first out of seven teams by the slimmest of margins.
We tied on points with the team who beat us in the penultimate round of matches. The first tie-breaker wasn’t head-to-head (which would have been curtains for us, obviously) but overall wins and losses. Our rivals, like us, had five wins and one loss. The next criterion was set differential: we finished on +16 to their +11.
The teams in third and fourth place were nipping at our heels too. There were no stand-out teams, and our winning total of 32 points (out of a possible 48) is probably some kind of historic low. But somebody had to win, and how often in life have I been part of a winning team? Hardly ever. I certainly played my part in the win: all those straight-set singles wins were a big help, and although some of my doubles losses were disappointing, the closeness of those defeats was crucial in eking out overall wins, as well as for our set differential when it came to that.
In a round robin competition like this, how should you separate teams tied on points? In football, should you use goal difference or head-to-head as the first tie-breaker? I’m firmly in the goal difference camp. Why use only one (or two) matches to break the tie when you can use them all (which could be as many as 38 or 46 matches)? Why shouldn’t every goal in every game be worth something? And when three (or more) teams tie, head-to-head can get messy. The same principle applies in a tennis competition. It’s just as well whoever made the rules of Wellington interclub saw things the same way.
