Harps Fantasy Footie Nears Conclusion

Its down to the last week in the inaugural Finn Harps Fantasy Football competition and Finn Harps FC would like to thank everyone who has helped make it such a success in its first year. Thanks to all of our entrants, we hope you will play again next year, and tell a few friends too. Also a big thank you to the Columba Gill, Harry Walsh and the Donegal News for their support and coverage of the competition without which it could not have taken place.

As for the competition itself, we are in the last week and we have already given away €1,650 to a total of 65 winners, 5 of you have already won twice. This is an average of two winners per week, but the scoring system worked well with relatively few ties, the weekly prize was won outright in 22 of the 33 weeks so far. This weeks weekly prize is shared three ways between James McFadden, Foxhills, Letterkenny; Kevin Burke, Deans Grange, Dublin and Rodney Dullaghan, Ballybofey.

The question on everyones lips however is who will take home the big prize, the prestigous title of Fantasy Footie Champion (and the small matter of a cheque for €2,500). The battle at the top of the leaderboard has been intruiging, after various early leaders the top of the table became somewhat settled b yabout week 13, and in the past few weeks four clear favourites emerged. Niall Toner, son of Harps chariman and club webmaster, Aidan McNelis, die hard Harps supporter now living in Galway, Rodney Dullaghan, a lifelong Harps fan and member of the well know From Behind the Nets Supporters Club and Séan Flanagan, a Kildare man whose father in law is a die hard Derrry City fan!!!

Aidan lead the competition for a total of 12 weeks, including 10 weeks in a row, befor ebeing overhauled by Niall who than lead for 8 of the last 10 weeks. Niall however has been somewhat let down by Man Utd recently and was finally overhauled in the penultimate week, actually dropping to third as Sean and Rodney inspired by Arsenal strong finish to the season leap frog to the top two places. The Championship competition has ended, and the bonus points for league placings have made a few changes to the table. The perfect selection from the Championship was Sunderland (221 pts), Wigan (206), Preston (179) and Derby (185). Niall, Rodney and Sean all had these team, Aidan had not. Crewe (113) proved a serious weak link and Aidan, having lead for so long drops out of the top 5 this week.

So who will take the prize? Rodney Dullaghan currently leads by 6 points from Séan Flanagan and by 11 from Niall Toner in third. One of these three will win. At time of writing Man Utd have just lost 3-1 to Chelsea, not helping Niall Toner's case. Arsenal will also take more bonus points than Man U as the Premiership top four is now decided. the only other difference between Naill and Rodney is that the former has Spurs, the latter Middlesborough, again advantage Dullaghan based on the current table. Rodney also hold the trump cards over Séan, both have Arsenal but Dullaghan has Bolton (currently 6th) as opposed to Aston Villa (10th). So can anyone stop the Behind the Nets man? It would seem that only Niall Toner has a chance, needing a storming last day result for Man Utd and for Spurs to catch Middlesbrough. The title is not Rodney's just yet, and on Saturday he'll be more concerned with a Finn Harps victoy over UCD, but on Sunday at 5.00pm it seems likely he may have another cause to crack open the champagne.