Asunto: S14 - State Cup Feedback

As well as all the positive comments that i receive from many of you I am interested to hear any feedback on the competition.
It seems some of you want a closer competition because it hurts your ranking points too much.
That said it is also up to each team to be prepared on the day but we can tweak the rules a little bit if necessary.

It is difficult to catter for everyone and get 24 teams to play as well. So I wont jeopardise the competition for only a few people but if there is a consensus then it will be considered.
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I'm still up for another state cup. It was run well, but I think there needs to be something that will somehow hopefully make having different team sizes not be an advantage...maybe something like a change to the points (where A-League teams receive 0.5 the total points earned, div II the normal points, and Div III 1.5x or some variation of)

As far as ranking points go, I think the teams that are worried about it should just play their own friendlies and work their ranking point sup if they re worried about it because if that is what they enjoy more then that is for the better, and we can just have a smaller state cup which may make things more even as I believe for the time being, it will be the teams higher in the leagues that will want to compete.

As for how it was run with the round robin style through friendly leagues, it was fantastic and things went smoothly in the finals too.

i dont really give a ****(insert your favourite swear word here :P) about ranking points, so no problem with me :D

There's a trick to not losing ranking points in friendlies... ;)

I think the format worked really well. People will generally organise games for one or two weeks, but for anything longer we really need to use the friendly leagues. The format was pretty much spot on. The only ways I'd like to see it improve would be in the:
- sign-up phase... get more active managers in and interested somehow(?),
- the draw of the group stage... maybe drawn from buckets(?),
- the points system... probably the weakest area.

For the points, some sort of handicap based on... something... could work. Maybe an average of the points earned by the best 4 teams of each state? The lower teams would still contribute (not by scoring points but) by taking points off other teams.

P1-P5 taken by Victoria, P6-P10 taken by ACT...
VIC = (P1-P4)/4
ACT = (P6-P9)/4

Something along those lines maybe. At least we have some sample results from this year to play around with and decide what system is fair.

I enjoyed the season. It was lots of fun, easy to participate, well organised by Minkee, the teams who put in the effort or committed the players generally were rewarded.
But I won the top prize, so of course I'm happy. :P Others might have different views.

As mentioned in the Sponsorship thread (page 32), maybe enforcing a mandated number of U21/U23 players would encourage teams not to play as many #1 team players.

Actually, I don't like the idea, but... there it is, out there to discuss.

I actually only have 2 U21 players this year (both 21)

i have 5 U21s, 3 which are my striker trainees, and the other 2 will get sold off once i finish pace training

The bigger issue is, I don't think such a rule would solve the problem we're trying to fix.

If we decided it was for the best, maybe something like... minimum 3 players U21 & extra 3 players U23. If you play 2 players U21 and 2 players U23, you get a 0.1 + 0.1 points penalty.
Just throwing darts at the wall here.
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I think it was well run. Maybe do something with the scoring in the end so that bigger states have a better chance?

I would play again the comming season if nothing is changed, but if we are forced to play "so so many U21 or U23 players" I would probably skip the whole tournament.

I usually do not play many first teamers, but some will always play and training is more important to me than the tournament.

Instead of random groups you could group by ranking? Big teams in one group, small teams in another etc?

You're running the risk of getting everyone bored as people would play the same team on sunday and wednesday... on the other hand it would level the field and keep people happy.

I will stick with 24 teams to consolidate the comp and its reputation but going along your line I can always split it in two groups of 12 sorted by ranking pts or average player's mark and leave the rest as it is.
I don't want to introduce an U21 or U23 rules, I did think about it as a way to control teams strength but I'm sorry but it's just too harsh and complicated on the teams as you can't expect them to have a roster for this comp. Plus I don't want to check everyone's lineup week in week out... far too time consuming.

The fact that two divII teams played the final is showing me that the competition is open. I wouldnt expect a divIII team to win it but I would expect a DivIII team to learn a lot from these though games and come stronger the year after in that comp, their league or the Oz cup.
On a very personal note, I was quite happy to draw 1-1 with Chelsea, lose only 3-1 to TBF and so on, it means I'm making progress and I'm always looking forward to these games...

The problem we have is more to do with some of us fielding 1st XI players week in week out. Not everybody is wiling to train 11 juniors and that's totally understandable.
Last season I was thinking giving goals away to the weaker team if the difference in average player mark was too big. Although it wouldnt solve the ranking pts problem it might change the final score if the weaker team make enough of an effort to device a tactic and pick their players properly (not only on the day but also on the market).

As for the calculation, it's simple I used three methods and they all gave me a different winner for this edition! (total state points (Qld), averages( Vic), best 3 teams(ACT)). There's room to find a fair and simple calculation there... maybe a coeficient per state to represent their strength, that coef could used further in the calculation.

keep it going guys! nothing is decided yet and everything is read and analysed :)

- sign-up phase... get more active managers in and interested somehow(?),
I'm against the use of personal email but we can post in every forum of the AL, II and III, it wouldnt take long. We can also carpet bomb everyone individually by sk-mail but that would take a wee bit longer. I'd like to get NZ involved as it's good for the banter and it can help them in the current climate.
- the draw of the group stage... maybe drawn from buckets(?),
it was done on excel with a random number formula but I can use bucket if you want :)
I see what you mean though... seedings...mmm... why not, it wouldnt hurt it but would make it more predictable....
- the points system... probably the weakest area.
When we see that Victoria won it I can only agree with the previous statement! :)
I think the v8 point system is good but it's the calculation that needs work

I am very unlikely...some of you will know why.

I'll play

welcome back :)

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