Home Nations - A Spicy Round One Guaranteed

Check out the form guide by Elo, and who's been drawn against whom in the first round as 264 coaches descend on Loughborough

We’re just two short days away from The Home Nations II - the largest tournament in Europe to use the Eurobowl ruleset, except for Eurobowl itself. Two hundred and sixty four coaches representing eleven different nations are ready to descend on Loughborough Students’ Union.

The Home Nations set to go again at Loughborough Students' Union this weekend

The national squads of the Home Nations, Italy and Poland, next year’s Eurobowl hosts, will compete for the glory of the Bowl. Whilst fifty-four squads from all over the UK and further afield (welcome back Team Malta!) will duke it out for the title of the Open.

The tagline of the tournament is ‘Where the Blood Bowl is Spicy’ and the Bowl last year definitely lived up to the hype as the Barbarians surprised the fancied Team England to win by one solitary coach point! The Barbars are not competing this year, but you can bet your boots Team Italy and Poland, making up the six nations, are not getting on a plane to make up the numbers or see the sights of a small market town in the Midlands. Expect this to be one hot ticket!

The Open was no different with Team England conquering the best around them to seal the inaugural Open. Within the vastly increased Open there are five national squads competing for the title representing Scotland, England, Wales, Northern Ireland, and Malta. 

However the national flags on these jerseys will not frighten the rest of the field - there are some super strong squads taking to the astrogranite in search of victory themselves. Two such squads I’ll highlight here; Tactics and Theatrics, winners of this year’s Tilean Team Cup in Florence, Italy’s big team tournament, have two of their squad members representing Team England in the Bowl, but there’s a strength-in-depth that means it would be a surprise not to see them fighting for honours come round six on Sunday.

Then of course the most stylish Blood Bowlers this side of the Hudson river, the Hakflem Globetrotters have the Blue and Red squads that not only are prepared to dazzle with their well known razzamatazz, but it's backed up with steel performances in their locker. 

Of course with fifty-four teams it’s impossible to do them all justice in a blog, so why not check out the Vod where Keithabix, Team Ireland Captain and BB_Jock, Team Scotland Captain, give the squads the once over as Round One was drawn live, with tongue firmly in cheek!

The Home Nations Bowl Round One Fixture Review

The Home Nations Open Round One Fixture Review

Live Draw of Round One Reveals some cracking matchups

In the Bowl every round is a corker, with only six nations competing in an all-play-all five round format. However the first round tie between Team Ireland and Team Scotland, arguably two of the least favorites to win the Bowl will be a tussle that neither of them will want to lose straight out the gate. 

Ireland picked up the wooden spoon last year, but they recorded a strong victory against Scotland last year. So Scotland will have a point to prove and neither will want an L on the record that could consign them to Spoon territory before lunch has been served on the Saturday!Within the tie there looks like three big match-ups that may well decide the round:

• (IRE) Gorgoroth - Dwarfs vs (SCO) Sporran - Undead

• (IRE) Danton - Humans vs (SCO) Loki - Vampires

• (IRE) Caolán - Elven Union vs (SCO) Sann0638 - Amazons

To have a look at the rest of the matchups with Ireland v Scotland, Poland v England and the spicy Wales v Italy check out the draw on Tourplay

In the Open a lot of the heavy favourites to progress deep in the tournament have managed to avoid each other, but there are definitely some spicy match-ups to follow closely in Round One of the Open including:

The flat cap wearing Democratic Republic of Yorkshire matched up against Morg ‘N’ Balds from the north east who are sneakily fielding Don_Vito a Team England member who’s been given a weekend pass from the Squad to ensure the GBBL are in tip top condition.

Then there’s bragging rights to be resolved with an internal dispute between Awesome Party People’s Originals and their New and Improved Squad - time will tell if they really are new and improved!

The final matchup that promises to be a belter that I’d highlight is Team Malta, sneakily named as Electric Boogaloo versus one of the all-singing and dancing Hakflem Globetrotters - Team Blue! Check-out the full line-up of the first round of the Open on Tourplay

By the Numbers - do Elo ratings let us read the runes of who’s going to win?

Let’s start with a thank you to Stewbacca, TO of the fabulous Kent Team Championship, (tickets available for 2026’s edition) as he’s completed the tabulation of the Elo ratings for both the Bowl and the Open.

For the Bowl if you have unshaken belief in Elo ratings (Ed: you shouldn’t!) then we should all go home now as Team England are runaway favourites based on the average highest race Elo with an impressive 243.7 average with Italy second seeds with an average of 234.3. This was the case last year, and they were pipped to the post. So I’m sure they’ll be keen to right that ‘wrong’! A snapshot of the highest average Elo table can be seen below.

However if you want to dig into the data check out Stewbacca’s lovely spreadsheet.

Rank	Team	Avg. Highest ELO
1	Team England	243.7
2	Team Italia 2025	234.3
3	Tîm Cymru	215.9
4	Team Scotland	212.7
5	Team Poland	187.6
6	Foireann na hÉireann	183.6

In the Open Team England were champions last year and no surprise to see them top of the Elo tree with an average of 225.4. However there are a number of strong teams within the top 10, based on Elo who will be charging hard over the course of the weekend. This should mean the Open should be a spicy affair that will only shake itself out after the end of the sixth round! See the top 20 below, but if you’d like to dig into the details then check out the Open stats from Stewbacca’s spreadsheet magic.

Rank	Team	Avg. Highest ELO
1	Team England	225.4
2	Tactics and Theatrics	208.0
3	Hakflem Globetrotters - Team Red	202.7
4	Team Redshirts	197.3
5	Bang Average Blood Bowl	194.6
6	Team Wales	194.1
7	Team Scotland	193.9
8	The Merry Men	189.3
9	Team Waterbowl	188.0
10	Planav Ukhaggas	187.1
11	SBL Nomads	185.7
12	Crusaders	184.4
13	LBBL	183.6
14	Hakflem Globetrotters - Team Blue	178.8
15	Awesome Party People - New and Improved	178.8
16	The GOBBLers	177.8
17	DBBL Skulls	175.7
18	No Eyed Deer	174.4
19	Albion Coast Savages	174.2
20	SKABBoteurs	173.8

Keep up with the action live on Twitch with Dizzybess and co-commentator Cauleeflower

I’m delighted to announce an upgrade to the media coverage of The Home Nations with the introduction of live streaming of the event by Dizzybess and her co-commentator Cauleeflower. They’ll be giving a blow-by-blow account of one of the spiciest matches of the round.

If you have FOMO, then never fear tune in on Twitch: http://twitch.tv/dizzybess

Dizzybess's Twitch Stream where all the live action from The Home Nations will be broadcast

Check out the schedule for live broadcast below:

Schedule for Day 1 of The Home Nations on Saturday 5 July

Schedule for Day 2 of The Home Nations on Sunday 6 July

The Home Nations II promises to be one helluva weekend. Wobert and I and the organisation team look forward to welcoming coaches from all four corners of the British Isles and from further afield - safe travels, and for those not in Loughborough don’t miss a beat, tune into Twitch with Dizzy and Caulee and keep up-to-date with the scores on Tourplay!

This blog first appeared on ScottishBloodBowl.com