Spoilers for Thursday 29th June 2023 - Series 87 Grand Final

[Philip A]

Forget The Ashes. This is the one to watch; the Grand Final featuring Ronan Higginson, the first person since the 30th Birthday Championship to achieve two maximum-scoring games, up against Cillian McMulkin, who has the joint-highest single game score ever. This should be stellar.

[Gavin Chipper]

Forget The Ashes.

I agree.

[Philip A]

R4 alt: TIDEWAY

[Philip A]

R8 alt: RADIOUS

Ronan on great form once again.

[Philip A]

All over!

[Philip A]

Well done on making the Grand Final, Cillian; good score but came up against someone on the top of his game on the day.

Ronan – phenomenal, remarkable, outstanding. To wrap it up with a personal best of 150 says it all.

Above all, both all-round top guys and hope you’ll be back on the show again in the not too distant future. Lovely gesture to end a fantastic series.

[Adam S Latchford]

Great final, worthy champion!
150 in a final is awesome, but the margin of victory against such a Strong player more impressive to me.

(50-9)x9-100 for an easy solution round 3

[Steve Hyde]

COERCION in R12. I celebrated that one like a victory

[Elliott Mellor]

Absolutely super - great play from both, and there's certainly no shame to losing to an opponent of Ronan's calibre.

Ronan has had quite a bit of hate in the past, but to see him achieving something that he always wanted to do is really heartening, and I don't think a single person can take away from the fact that he richly deserved this.

Well done Ronan, and well done to Cillian as well - you've both done yourselves very proud.

[Tracey Anne Mills]

Superb final and great play by you both

Firstly congratulations to Ronan on becoming the series 87 champion

Secondly commiserations to Cillian he had a fabulous run and finishing as a series runner up is an achievement in it's self

That was a lovely gesture at the end when Ronan allowed Cillian to hold the trophy with him

Well done to you both you should be proud of what you have achieved

Recap will be up later !

[Jojo Apollo]

Great game, many congrats to Ronan on becoming series champ, awesome performance, very classy letting Cillian hold the trophy at the end aswell. Well done to Cillian on becoming series runner-up, a great set of games

[Gavin Chipper]

Brilliant game and series and well done to both. Probably not Cillian's best game so it could have been closer but this was arguably the best ever performance over a whole series from Ronan.

Edit - Just been on the wiki and Ronan's total from 11 games is 1435, beating Luke Johnson Davies's 1384. That's over 130 a game.

[Ryan Lam]

We're here, the Grand Final where the continuity announcer for today has asked us to strap ourselves in and promised it will be epic! Good news that we didn't encounter Apterous being down unlike the previous Grand Final and Tom Stevenson the Grand Champion from Series 86 is here to watch with us, guess that makes up for the disruption we had half a year ago! Ronan's also here with us the Daily Chat and he's with a watch party of 50 students in his school hall. With an extremely packed room virtually today, you know this is the episode everyone has been anticipating for. As the former mentioned, both players are winners in his eyes no matter who succeeds him, wise words to start off this final episode of Series 87! Also, yes, Origins of Words was cut out simply because there was not enough time, otherwise the program would have overran severely (Ronan confirmed this segment was recorded).

Letters: I see the letters selection in R1, hold up, haven't we seen this last week? Turns out we weren't seeing things and both contestants get IGNORABLE to start off with a massive 18 points until Colin's voice cracked (Cillian most likely would have seen Ronan getting this behind-the-scenes in the latter Quarter-Final) Then, Ronan gets in the lead with MAPWISE in R2 as we break for a Numbers round. After the first teatime teaser, both contestants matched each other, not least to say in R7 with both maximums, ENSILAGED and ANGELISED! Amazing!! The next round Ronan had ODALISK which left everyone watching with him laughing after they found out the meaning but Cillian had aluroids which Susie braced herself for his hatred, unlucky I was hoping for a nine in the last third so that Ronan and Cillian could top off with three of that kind, and it's the former that does the trick with PECORIATE to beat APORETIC! Then, came the crucial R12 and Ronan's declared Series Champion! However, we still have to formally go through three rounds, no prematurely ending the game just there!

COERCION in R12. I celebrated that one like a victory

Got that too, and this is one of, if not the only time I beat Ronan on-screen! One more round and Cillian tried to risk quandries to close the gap but argh, it's quandaries with another "A" inside, not the ending I'm sure he wanted

Numbers: No playing around in the Grand Final, Ronan goes for 4 Large and getting one away was simple enough by adding all the numbers. Unfortunately, Cillian misses it and has to concede (Ronan mentioned he declared 268 in the original take but went wrong, so I'm not sure why the final cut made it seem like he lost it completely which is untrue) Damn it, Rachel made the exact solution so easy that I clicked my fingers as I couldn't see it. Excellent R6 and R9 afterwards with both attaining 20 points, and the finale saw Cillian going 4 Large as well, but unfortunately, Ronan spotted an easy method that no one in the Daily Chat thought of (excellent!) to widen the gap even further!

Conundrum: By the time we reached here, we were probably in a PARTY mood since Ronan had already won, but let's see if Cillian can refresh his SOUL in the last round. The answer turns out to be very similar to the CoC XVI Final Conundrum five months ago (PULSATILE), and with Ronan buzzing in, Colin announces the Hurricane has blown everyone away with PULSATORY, ending his stint here with 150 points and the highest ever Grand Final score! I bet there must have been a lot of cheering and screams from not just Ronan's watch party when this happened, but all of us who were watching this live! Fantastic!!

I thought this game was going to be close, but Ronan would edge out against Cillian with a margin of around 30 points without a Crucial conundrum. Turns out the actual difference was 67 points thanks to the nine Ronan spotted in R10 and that shows my prediction for this Final has been quite bad, oh well, maybe it's time for me to refine my predicting methods for Series 88. Cillian, while you were defeated soundly here, you have had the distinction of having the joint highest score in a single game along with Tom Stevenson of 154 points, that is amazing and will be very hard to beat in the far future. 11.5 years of practice surely paid off and I'm sure you have boosted the popularity of the show in Ireland indirectly.

Ronan, as Rachel mentioned, Conor Travers was the first ever person to have his name inscribed on the Richard Whiteley Trophy. If he was the greatest of all time in that generation, you are certainly now the greatest of all time in this current era. Scoring the second best Preliminary total only to Elliott Mellor, the first person in Countdown's over 40 year history to score two maximum games in a regular Series and now to top it all off, the highest ever Xicount with 1435 points, toppling Luke Johnson-Davies 2.5 year record by 51 points! There's just so many accolades to your name that you're not just any teenage Prodigy on the show, you are truly a master in your own right that will be revered and many people will definitely look up for many years to come.

Ronan has had quite a bit of hate in the past, but to see him achieving something that he always wanted to do is really heartening, and I don't think a single person can take away from the fact that he richly deserved this.

I bet this must have been a dream come true for you since the days you were young. I remember you joining the Wiki and editing tons of stuff back in the days years ago to the point I got slightly annoyed (Yes, I admit I was one of those haters in that aspect), but to see you mature overtime and make it this far on-screen really made me incredibly proud of how far you have come and that your spot in Countdown history has been secured. Even at the very end, to see you sharing the trophy with Cillian McMulkin as some people highlighted in the closing scenes just proves this point, that despite defeating him, he deserves a share of your honour and glory and I'm sure your sister and parents who watched you are overjoyed at your accomplishments at such a young age. As Colin was quipping about CoC XVII which could happen in early-2026, we shall wait for you and Cillian to do it all over again when the time comes, no doubt about it! Both of you deserve all of our applause, congratulations!

We're not going to have a long break in the form of a weekend before the start of the next Series, for it is starting tomorrow already to end off the first half of 2023! Adrian Clarke is returning to the champions' chair to see if he can get more than just his one win last Tuesday! The search for the next eight finalists in December shall begin very soon! Enjoy your Summer holidays if you are having any in the meantime too!

Progress:
QF1 (21 June 2023): Ronan Higginson (#1) vs Andrew Barrett (#8) (122 - 70)
QF2 (22 June 2023): Cillian McMulkin (#2) vs Dave Cappleman (#7) (109 - 81)
QF3 (23 June 2023): Peter Burke (#3) vs Greg Pearce (#6) (107 - 64)
QF4 (26 June 2023): Graham Moonie-Dalton (#4) vs Adam Dexter (#5) (60 - 117)
SF1 (27 June 2023): Ronan Higginson (QF1 Winner) vs Adam Dexter (QF4 Winner) (122 - 98)
SF2 (28 June 2023): Cillian McMulkin (QF2 Winner) vs Peter Burke (QF3 Winner) (122 - 41)
GF (29 June 2023): Ronan Higginson (SF1 Winner) vs Cillian McMulkin (SF2 Winner) (150 - 83)

[Johnny Canuck]

Y'all just gonna leave us guessing what ASPERMIA means?

[Ronan M Higginson]

More to come but many thanks folks

[Gavin Chipper]

Y'all just gonna leave us guessing what ASPERMIA means?

More to come

It's the opposite isn't it?

[Johnny Canuck]

Interesting that 880 was declared on that last numbers, as it isn’t actually possible.

[Ronan M Higginson]

Interesting that 880 was declared on that last numbers, as it isn’t actually possible.

Round 14 of a final as well!

[Andres Sanchez]

What... the hell? That was a final that me and my buddies were never expecting. Very well done to you and very well done to Cillian for stellar play, and I really appreciated the shot of you two holding the trophy up together; to me that's the best kind of sportsmanship anyone could do.

Here's my play-by-play!

IGNORABLE
IMPOSE
25*9+50-9
PRAISED
DUALITY
(10+7+1+1)*25
ENSILAGED
ODALISK
75*(3+7)+5
OPERATIC
NOVATE
CORNICE
SQUANDER
100*4*(50/25)+75+3
POLYATRUS

Me against Ronan would be 98 - 144 and me against Cillian would be 112 - 91. Gotta be one of the best finals out there, much love to you two!

[Gavin Chipper]

Interesting that 880 was declared on that last numbers, as it isn’t actually possible.

One for the coincidences thread

[Toby McDonald]

Fantastic final! Huge congratulations Ronan! Very well deserved winner, and what a score! MAPWISE and PECORAITE were lovely spots. Commiserations Cillian, you put up a very good fight.

[Martin Hurst]

Many congrats Ronan - attaining a big octo-total is one thing, but it's a whole new ball game in the finals when the real heat is on, and it's an arena where you continued to excel, whilst some with comparable pedigree and expectation have not done themselves justice in the recent past. Pretty scary that you still have a few years of practice to get even better for the next CoC!