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First topic message reminder :

Saracens move off the bottom of the table after picking up a losing bonus point against Gloucester.

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Welcome to Season 5 of the Aviva Premiership fantasty rugby game. Below are the rules of the game which must be adhered to. If there are any situations that arise in the course of the game which are not covered by the rules, a final decision will be made by the RFU (Ozzy3213) as to how the situation will be resolved.

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).

Failure to comply with these rules will result in forfeiting the match and a 1 league point deduction.

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 Finalist - £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.

Why would we bring Youngs on at 55 mins? Lol

Missed an absolute cracker Chris, amazing. 1-15 were amazing. Pack just smashed them.

BBC3 now

Biggest result in English rugby since the 2003 world cup win.

Can't stand Steve Hanson , Living off Graham Henry's team.

To be entirely honest i can't see Dylan Hartley taking Tom Youngs spot now. Watching the game now (Only seen last 15mins earlier) and Youngs is a beast in the loose.

Don't think I've ever seen AB's play so bad, nobody really turned up. They looked goosed mind.

I hope so mate, of all the games to miss!

Tuilagi was fantastic, was the centre we hoped he could be.

Results and table updated.

Just seen the match fantastic win. Big games from Tuilagi and Youngs in the backs. Wood was immense. Farrell showed what he can bring to the England side. Tom Youngs brought his loose game into play.

Will take the performances with a pinch of salt as the All Blacks were no where near 100% after the vomiting bug. Bit harsh to slate Hansen for that performance Driver. His All Blacks have been untoucable until today.

What vendetta is there against Youngs Luke? This is the first time hes brought his loose game into play apart from Fiji! Hes had big set piece issues the two games before this. He was great today fair play but the ALl Blacks were way of their best. He will need to back that performance up come the 6 nations.

Unlucky Prop! Saw the game live and what a rotten way to be done over!

I was at the game. Best ever truckers experience. Our front row superb. Corbs murdered franks.

Parling was excellent also. Whole pack was tremendous.
We won the collisions and were fantastic at rucks.

Youngs kicked poorly and brown looked all over the place defensively.

Only player who showed for nz was Savea. Very impressive. Carter will never play like that again he had a stinker

Just saw the Ashton try on youtube - it looked as though it was an actual backs move from a lineout...no wonder NZ missed the tackles, they must have been in complete shock!

Good to see McCaw come out and say that the sickness bug didnt have a bearing on the game, just that England were so good. SS3 are showing the game again at 12:30 - really looking forward to watching it.

Can't believe I had to turn down tickets for the game!

Did Savea get 2 tries in each game he played?

Fair enough ratings?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/rugbyunion/international/england/9716518/England-v-New-Zealand-how-the-players-rated.html

Slightly ott ratings giving messam 1 is silly.

Likewise a lot of England players over rated.

Brown never an 8

Yea there's some stupid ratings about really tearing into NZ. If they'd have beat us in similar style we'd be all 6/7's.

Agree Youngs & Farrell were kicking awfully first 15/20 mins, then we started just playing cleverly.

Burns mucked up a fair few times but looked decent, especially when he kept hold of the ball. Vuinipola was a bit of an idiot but I'll let him off seen as we won.

Times ratings much more accurate but can't be accessed online.

Thought our front row were so good in loose.

Youngs carried superbly and Cole was great at the breakdown.

Chuffed with win but AB's off pace, just looked at 60-70% and we were up for it. I was reading ratings, didn't even realised Messam played tbh.

Rankings for WC groups, too little too late for us really.

1 New Zealand - 90.08
2 South Africa - 86.94
3 Australia - 86.87
4 France - 85.07
5 England - 83.90
6 Ireland - 80.22
7 Samoa - 78.71
8 Argentina - 78.71
9 Wales - 78.39
10 Italy - 76.24
11 Tonga - 76.10
12 Scotland - 75.83

Draw tomorrow isn't it?

Anyone read Stuart Barnes in the Times today, saying how we still need to shake up the backline more as our pack is going to be powerful enough to beat most teams in the 6Nations but need a bit more spark in the backs.

Reckons it should be 10. Burns 12. Twelvetrees 13. JJ 14. Tuilagi - not so sure!

Just from watching the first 5mins you can see the difference in how England have set out to play.

Barnes such an idiot, none of those have showed anything really to justify a start. We do need a plan B in midfield though

Think Barnes writes very well (especially compared to Stephen Jones - now that is a grade A idiot).

Wonder if Greenwood could come out of retirement - looking forward to reading his report on the game soon Pooly, will make sure I send you the link as know that you like his articles as much as I do!

I like him as a pundit but he talks crap in his columns, as do most tbh. They need to add spice to make people read it I guess.

I can't see how our pack is more powerful then the French or the Irish. Fully fit and on form the Welsh are a match for us at the moment as well. Barnes talks complete toosh at times!

One thing I picked up from being in the stadium was how out of position Jj was when he came on. Looked massively out of his depth. Did not look fully fit.

Our pack matches the Irish pack for me.

Steven_Sharks wrote:Our pack matches the Irish pack for me.

Totally agree. Think our front five are better

Bottom again....guess I'll look to rebuild soon I think. After good eq if people have any available?

Kaino can return from his loan too!

Good to hear h.p's out of hospital.

Think there is only the Frogs with a pack as good as ours.

I don't think there is a great deal between any of the packs in the 6N. French the most consistant and probably the best but the rest fairly even.

There's not a big difference between all the NH packs, just depends if they turn up. Hopefully we can be more consistent than the others

What an amazing game that was.

The atmosphere sounded absolutely electric - so tough calling a motm in that -Wood, Launchbury, Morgan, Tuilagi and Farrell all unreal.

Has to be one of the best pack performances from England, they just stopped all fast ball. Haskell and Lawes did very well when they came on.

Burns looks made for international rugby - his passing is fantastic and the way he matches up his game is great to watch too.

Why can't we play like that every week!

Smashed the Kiwis at the breakdown , McCaw must of been smashed clear everytime he was in the ruck.

Tom Wood was immense at 6. Interesting to see where that performance leaves Tom Croft in the pecking order with Haskell making a impact from the bench.

Think a fully fit Irish back row and the French front 5 are the best, but in terms o overall pack were not far off.

Think Mike Brown had a storming game. Some real good selection headaches for England come 6N.

Depends how you look at it really , Corbs looked like the best LH in the world yesterday.

Also thought Brown was excellent.

Looks ready made to play on the wing internationally Brown , same story with Cory Jane. Played full back in super rugby and then wing for the All Blacks.

NZ just didn't show up, we're not now world class. It was an impressive performance though.

Brown was good Steve, never stops going forward

Think they need to win a Grand slam before the world cup if we want to be serious about challenging come 2015.

Personally I'd have Woodcock as the World's best loosehead but I am a big fan of his. A lot of looseheads struggle with injury and form and he and Healy are the two who are consistantly playing well at the top level.

I'm not saying Corbs is . i'm saying yesterday he looked like the worlds best. Owen Franks had a bit of a mare all round.

Luke Ramano impressed me when he came on for the All Blacks.

Anyone have a link for player release page or do we just release them on the National league page?

Craig Mitchell £4m
Paul Hodgson £6m
Ronan O'Gara - £10m
Lachie Turner - £8m

All going for cheap.

Does anyone have browns tackle stats. He got beat a few times and struggled defensively For me.


Not playing Wing is his problem. He may grow in to it

Do like Brown, such a feisty player - must be a nightmare to play against with all the cheeky late hits and nudges he puts in. So hard to put down, was always sucking in 2 tacklers.

Dont think he will ever be a prolific try scorer at that level, which is really what you'd want in a wing, as his running/support lines arent right, but was v impressed with him yesterday.

When he beat Jane early doors it was quality and really set the tone.

Also quality when woodcock ran straight through Tom youngs.absolutely skittles him

Really like Brown, hard runner. Step up defensively to Sharples for example.

Youngs seemed to miss quite a few tackles yesterday - rest of his game, with exception of some of his lineout work really impressed me.

Dont think Flood will get back into the match day 23 for some time - Farrell did so well, he's just got that Jonny Wilkinson winning mentality, which I think Flood lacks.

Just hope we can really build on this now - be interesting to see how Lancaster brings Croft back into things, whether Robshaw could be the one who might miss out, as Wood to me is our best backrower.

Murphy and Q must be Glos' top try scorers this season!! Massively impressed with how Murphy's come on this year.

Their were plenty of things which needed to be improved. Far from a perfect and to be honest the win yesterday saved the Ai's from being a disappointment.

Positives: - Cole and Corbs. They were magnificent. Potentially we could have two of the best all round props in the world in the not too distant future.

- Manu Tuilagi showed he can cause real problems to the very best in the world in Nonu and Smith. He has been criticised by some but he can't be left out I don't think.

- Farrell showed he has an all round game. Make no mistake he needs to improve massively on his work with the ball in hand but he was pretty decent with his boot and in defence.

- Mike Brown and Ashton look to be a very good wing combo. For me Ben Foden is the man to have at 15 between them.

- Launchbury is a superstar.

Negatives:- Ben Youngs kicking was poor early on but it did improve.

- Tom Youngs throwing still a concern. For me atm he is an ideal impact sub until he learns more about the role at Leicester.

- Mako Vunipola's fitness an issue for me. he would really struggle if required to play for an extended period.

- Barritt still needs to offer more in attack than he currently does.

Jamie Roberts had a storming game yesterday by all accounts.

Agree with you on all the points there Steve - we could have a top, top class front five by the time of the 6Nations Corbs, Hartley, Cole, Lawes/Launch, Parling/Launch.

12 still an issue for me, but there still isnt anyone around really - was surprised at how much we got out of the 10, 12 and 13 channel yesterday - you can't move Tuilagi from 13 after that, the first try was all from Conrad Smith being worried about Tuilagi's threat and he opened up a huge gap for Barritt to burst through.

Really hope it isnt a one off performance!