i think we should all email the bbc as the way the leaderboard was it was impossible that even with the highest public vote austin and erin would of been in the dance off as lisa gets the lowest public votes. (dont get me wrong i don't dislike lisa). Austin and tom always come top so there was no way our public votes would of helped him so i feel a bit cheated as if it was left to public votes he wouldn't be in the dance off. none of this is against lisa and rachel its just if it down to the public vote austin wouldn't be in the dance off. This has been the only strictly where the obvious winner hasn't won.

i agree, how was it that the person with the highest total score so far has gone???? He has been consistenly good - i didn't realise the winner would be the person who has improved the most rather than the best dancer

It was an unlucky dance allocation for Austin for this week.

He did look tired though and those 'guns' (WTF Tess?) and hard muscle bound bod did not help when it came to fluidity and softness.

this was just meant to be for austin fans

Austin isn't the person who's improved the most (Lisa) and he's not the best dancer (Rachel)

I think his muscles were a massive problem - thighs too big to cross his legs properly and inability to move his upper body enough

it's not been down to the public vote only for a couple of years so it's no use saying 'what if'

Sorry....how do you know who I support?

well who is your favourite? lets keep this thread nice and friendly like i said its not against any of the others just an opinion of a lot of austin fans that if it was a public vote he wouldn't of been in the dance off.

I feel very sad for Austin, after weeks of being told by the judges what a fantastic dancer he was, they gave him the two fingers up with their marking on saturday night. IMVHO neither of his dances was as bad as Lisa's lumpy jive. He did look tired on sat night so maybe it happened for a reason. Hope good things come for him after all the effort he put into scd.

And neither of them scored as badly. Lisa's jive got 33 which was the lowest score of the night.

But it's not just a public vote, is it?

FWIW, I think all the four celebs were brilliant - Austin was just not-quite-so-brilliant as the others, that's all. And I speak as someone who likes Austin and is also a rugby fan.

I think Austin was the best dancer out of the male celebs this year because he had the performance as well as the technique and I wish as well that people will stop blaming Erin because she worked absolute wonders with Austin and they were a perfect partnership and they had such great chemistry. So now I am supporting Tom and Camilla, because Austin has now gone, which he shouldn't have.

Frpm Hayley

The judges have said repeatedly this year that it is so close that which dance in which week can be critical for the celebs.

This week Austin said that he hadn't watched Fred Astaire until Wednesday, so how could he possibly know how to sell the American Smooth? And putting Lisa's ballroom against Austin's salsa was always going to put him out of the competition as her ballroom is so good.

I love Austin and thought his dancing was fantastic, but he got unlucky this week - wrong dance, wrong week and it all went Pete Tong.

Sorry, won't be emailing and complaining to anyone. Much as I'm completely gutted Austin is out, and pretty much knew he was the second I saw the leaderboard, nearly impossible for him to get out of it, thems the rules of the game - it changed last year and we all know how it works now.

Put it this way, I'm fairly certain Christine had a bigger public vote then Rachel, but she still went to a higher scoring with the Judges dancer, and very few were screaming foul then, I certainly wasn't.

Austin was hugely unlucky, had his dance allocation for the past two weeks been swapped around he'd have been fine, but it wasn't to be.

Very good point. I was a bit shocked when I heard that tbh, especially as Austin's pal Tom clearly wants to be Fred Astaire, you'd have thought he might have checked out what all the fuss was about before last Wednesday. Also, didn't Austin say how much he'd been looking forward to the AS all series? I think he figured it was all going to be about the lifts to give the dance the 'wow' factor, but as it turned out he discovered that lifts are as much about technique as brute strength, and they were strangely underwhelming as it turned out.

Still sad he's gone, though.

Wouldn't be any good. They have the final they wanted.