I go down to my little hut, where it's tight and dark and warm, and within minutes I can go back to being six or seven or eight again.

Now I can go back to being ruthless again.

I do have a blurred memory of sitting on the stairs and trying over and over again to tie one of my shoelaces, but that is all that comes back to me of school itself.

We didn't know what the gap was until we reached the hut. We were about six minutes ahead. I was wasted at that point, but Brian pulled me through. I didn't have anything left. If it weren't for him, we probably would still be out there.

I am only 8 years old, I told myself. No little boy of 8 has ever murdered anyone. It's not possible.

If a situation is tight, if we're comparing six to eight teams, and two of those six to eight teams have put together a schedule with rigor, and they've been balanced in terms of playing games both home and away from home, the tiebreaker in that kind of situation is going to go with the teams that have scheduled and have challenged themselves.