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2011/2012 – Newcastle Falcons
2010/2011 - Newcastle Falcons
2009/2010 - Saracens
2008/2009 - London Irish

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POS		Aviva Premiership	PLAYED	WON	DREW	LOST	P F	P A	P D	T F	T A	TBP	LBP	POINTS
1		Bath Rugby	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
2		Exeter Chiefs	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
3		Gloucester	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
4		Harlequins	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
5		Leicester Tigers	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
6		London Irish	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
7		London Wasps	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
8		Newcastle Falcons	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
9		Northampton Saints	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
10		Sale Sharks	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
11		Saracens	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
12		Worcester Warriors	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0

Senior Squads wrote:
The maximum squad size is 40 senior players. If a team has more than 40 players in their squad then they will be fined £1 million per player over the permitted amounts per day for the first seven days. If after 7 consecutive days a team still has more than the permitted number of players then the team will be fined £2 million per player per day, and fined 1 league point per player per day for the next seven days. If after this time a team still has more than the permitted number of players in their squad, the RFU (me) will remove players at it’s discretion to bring them back under the permitted numbers. There will be no right of appeal to players being removed.

Be aware that all tier one international matches which are played during the season will count in the game, and players selected in the matchday 22's for those matches will not be eligible to play for their clubs on that weekend, therefore you must give due consideration to the make up of your squad.

Academy Rules wrote:
Each team will be allowed to have a listed senior academy squad of 20 players. Players who are in the senior academy must be under 22 years of age as of 1st September 2012 (therefore must have been born on or after 1st Septmber 1990). Players who are under the age of 20 (so born after 1st September 1992) AND are in the academy of the club that you are managing in real life, DO NOT need to be listed as senior academy players as part of your 20, but are available to you in this game and cannot be poached by other clubs without paying you a fee.

Should a player not listed in your 20 senior academy players, but part of the clubs academy in real life move clubs in real life, then you will have first option of promoting him to your listed senior academy. If you choose not to take this option he will become property of the club that he moves to in real life in this game.

Transfers wrote:

• Domestic (other AP Teams)
  Each team has a budget to use in the purchase of players. Domestic transfers between AP clubs, regardless of nationality of player, should be negotiated between the respective managers, and then confirmed on the Domestic Transfer Confirmation Page.
  
  
• Domestic (Championship and below)
  Each team may during the season purchase no more than 3 players from the Championship or the National Leagues. These players must be bid for on the Championship/National League bidding page, and each bid will be considered by me on it's own merits before being accepted or rejected. No bid will be accepted until a minimum of 24 hours has elapsed from the time the bid was made, in order to afford other managers the opportunity to make a counter bid.
  
  
• Foreign
  To make a foreign transfer (i.e from any club outside of the AP, regardless of whether the player is English) a bid should be made on the Foreign Transfers Page, which will be considered by me against the posted guidelines for purchase prices before being accepted or rejected. No bid will be accepted until a minimum of 24 hours has elapsed from the time the bid was made, in order to afford other managers the opportunity to make a counter bid.
  
  Foreign transfers will unlimited during the off season and 2 during the season. The exact dates of the two transfer windows during the season is to be confirmed.
  

Player Releases wrote:
Managers may choose to release players from their clubs, for which they will be offered compensation

Compensation will be paid as follows

£2 million – current international (must have played international rugby in the previous 12 months)
£1.5 million – former international
£1m – top flight experience
£0.5m – other

If a released player plays in real life for a team outside of this game he will be deemed to have returned to that team. If not then he will be deemed to have signed for a Championship side. If another manager wants to pick a released player up, they will have to bid for him in the same way as for a foreign or Championship/National League player.

Retirements wrote:
There will be no compensation for retiring players. Should a player who retires decide to come out of retirement and play again, then he will automatically go back to the club who he was playing for in the game when he retired.

Fixtures wrote:
There will be 22 Aviva Premiership games per season, plus the play offs. There will also be Heineken Cup, Amlin Challenge Cup and Anglo Welsh Cup matches. These games will take place once a week. A thread will be put up for managers to name their teams on Thursdays, then on Fridays, managers will post the scores that they think will happen from these games (apart from games in which they are involved). An average of all predictions will be taken, and then 0.5 points added to each teams score for each prediction that had them as the winner, and that will then be the final score.

Teams wrote:
When naming your team, not only should you put the starting XV and replacements, but also tactics that your team will employ. Results will be affected by the tactics described.

In addition, each team must have the following:-

At least 10 England qualified players in your matchday 23, and at least 5 of those must be in your starting XV.

At least 2 props and 1 hooker on the bench.

All players must be eligible (not injured or banned).

If you fail to submit a team for a match, then the other team will be automatically awarded a 30-0 bonus point win. If both teams fail to submit a team, then it will be scored as a 0-0 draw.

Injuries and Suspensions wrote:
Injuries in this game do NOT reflect real life, they will be generated by me.

Players banned in real life will be ineligible for selection in this game for the duration of the ban.

Inclusion of injured/banned players will result in them being replaced by players on the bench, and the bench not having eight players, which may result in punishment if it concerns the front-row.

Punishment for fielding an ineligible player will be loss of one match point for a first offence, two for a second offence and so on.

Financial Rewards wrote:
There will be no rewards for the result of an individual match, instead the managers will receive cash for predicting.

£1.5m for descriptive predictions
£0.25m for scores on the doors predictions
If you fail to predict without first advising me that you are unable to do so that week, you will be fined £1m for a first offence, £2m for a second offence, £3m for a third offence etc.

AP finishing positions.

Champions: 8m
Runners Up: 6m
Playoff Semi Finalist Losers: 5m
5th: 4m
6th: 3.5m
7th: 3m
8th: 2.5m
9th: 2m
10th: 1.5m
11th: 1m
12th: 0.5m

Heineken Cup

Losing Quarter Finalists - £2 million each
Losing Semi Finalists - £3 million each
Runners Up - £4 million
Champions - £5 million

Amlin Challenge Cup

Losing Quarter Finalists - £1 million each
Losing Semi Finalists - £2 million each
Runners Up - £3 million
Champions - £4 million

Anglo-Welsh Cup

Losing Semi Finalisst - £1 million each
Runners Up - £2 million
Champions - £3 million


If your budgets falls below minus £10 million for any reason, the administrators (ozzy3213) will step in and players from within your squad will be released for the relevant financial compensation in order to bring your budget back above minus £10 million.

dammit_chris wrote:Sounds like Marler, Johnson and Brown to start with Foden moving to wing.

dammit_chris wrote:Also Youngs starts overDickson

anonmattyt wrote:

SirJohnnyEnglish wrote:You like slating Thomson don't you Matt... Had a pretty good world cup didn't he? Form blindside of super rugby for the last 2 years now not his fault he has come through same time as Kaino really is it? Who are all these more deserving talents?

Sje as I said in my comment. Great s15 player average international.

That game in the tri nations when samo embarrassed him sums it up for me.

He is decent lineout and breakdown but not outstanding. His versatility is the reason he has been capped in my opinion. I would have vito every day over him

biltongbek wrote:George, many pudits in Sa beleives Juandre Kruger would have been a bok long ago was it not for Victor Matfield being such a prominent player.

He is expected to marshall the Springbok line out for the next number of years, although I don't see him as a ball carrier in the manner of Andries Bekker, he certainly is a big physical lock.

Eben Etzebeth is still a baby, in lock terms, he doesn't have a lot of experience, but is very highly rated, we don't often play a youngster in his first season of Super rugby at test level, but when we do you can count on him being a bit of a promising future star. He is very physical, some have likened him to Bakkies Botha, but he says, he doesn't want to be the next Bakkies.



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by Gavin Rich 04 June 2012, 12:05


Eben Etzebeth was sitting exhausted in the Loftus change-room celebrating with his Stormers teammates when a team management member told him he had become a Springbok -- and he reacted by bursting into tears.

“I have to admit that a few tears went down my face when I was told I was in the squad, it was unbelievable news,” said Etzebeth, who is just 20 years of age and hadn’t even played Super Rugby before the start of the current season.

“Saturday was definitely the best day of my rugby life. To beat the Bulls at Loftus was awesome, a truly awesome feeling, and then afterwards to be told you have realised your dream of becoming a Springbok. Well, it was just unbelieveable. It was an emotional day for all of us, we really had to dig deep to win against the Bulls, and we were exhausted but very happy.”

Etzebeth was playing in the backline for one of the lower teams at Tygerberg High just a few seasons ago. Although born into a rugby family -- his uncles Cliffie and Skattie were legendary figures in Western Cape rugby in a previous era -- and filled with the burning ambition to make a success of the game, that did not look likely before former Springbok lock Hennie Bekker visited Tygerberg to help the first team three years ago.

Bekker, now in charge of youth rugby at WP and the father of Etzebeth’s regular lock partner, Andries Bekker, has recounted how he spotted Etzebeth and took up a role in charting his career.

“I was helping the first team at Tygerberg when I spotted this really big guy running with the backs in one of the lower teams on another field,” recalls Bekker.

“I asked the guys who the big fellow was and they told me he was one of the Etzebeths, and I called him over. I told him to come to the WP Elite Squad sessions that I ran every week, but told him that he had to make a promise to me that he would be completely committed and would work hard. He made that promise. He also promised that he would stop messing around in the backs and become only a lock after that.”

Etzebeth’s rise from there was quite meteoric, and he quickly progressed to a point where he could nail down a spot in the WP Craven Week team and from there he furthered his rugby development by attending the WP Institute in Stellenbosch.

“I knew that if he worked hard he would make it big as he has all the attributes. He is very quick for his size and has great skills,” said Bekker.

Etzebeth periodically wore a No 5 on his back when he played in the WP junior level teams and for UCT in the Varsity Cup, but he says he has always filled the role of a No 4.

NOT A BOTHA CLONE

“Being a No 4 lock is about always being confrontational and having attitude. I suppose you could say it is about being the enforcer, and it is a role that I like,” said Etzebeth.

If, as anticipated, he is selected for Saturday’s first test against England at Kings Park, he will be fitting into the boots vacated by the legendary Bakkies Botha, and also filling the role that the former Bulls player performed for so many years. However, he says he hasn’t modeled himself on Botha and doesn’t intend becoming a Botha clone.

“I want to do my own thing and don’t want to be like anybody else,” he said.

Etzebeth is being closely guided and his progress monitored at the Stormers by forwards coach Matthew Proudfoot, who has said that he would like Etzebeth to become a lock who is capable of playing both at No 4 and No 5, with Proudfoot saying in a recent magazine interview that the rugby public have yet to see the full extent of Etzebeth’s abilities.

“He is actually a superb lineout jumper, he has great ability there, but at the Stormers, because we have so seldom been shut down (when Bekker and Duane Vermeulen are playing), we haven’t needed to use him that much as yet,” said Proudfoot.

Etzebeth said he is looking forward to the challenge of taking on more responsibility as he gains more experience.

“That is true, we are working towards that, but at this stage I don’t know when I am going to be given the task of running the lineout,” said Etzebeth.

The big lock is deceptively fast for a big man and has enough pace to play loose-forward should it be required.

“I did a lot of sprinting when I was at school and I don’t think I have lost that pace,” he said.

As a new kid on the block in Super Rugby, Etzebeth is not well acquainted yet with the players from the other franchises. However he was already fitting in well when he spoke to SuperSport.com at the team hotel in Umhlanga Rocks on Sunday.

“Fortunately my friends Siya Kolisi and Frans Malherbe have joined the squad for the learning experience, so that helps, but so far everyone has been very welcoming. We are not talking about this past weekend of Super Rugby, we are all looking forward to the challenge we face as teammates against England.”