Season 7 Homepage 2

First topic message reminder :

Breaking News: Saints continue to set the pace with win at defending champions while the Chiefs remain unbeaten after toppling the Tigers 
 

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Welcome to Season 7 of the Aviva Premiership fantasy 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 (SJE) 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 (SJE) will remove players at its 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 match day 23'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 an academy squad of 20 players.  Players who are in the academy must be born on or after 1st September 1992. 

Any player, who is at any Premiership club in real life, either in their senior, academy or AASE squads, can be bid for on the domestic bidding page. Players who are at your own club in real life and are coming through the academy system must be bid for if you want them in your own academy.

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 5 players from the Championship or the National Leagues. These players must be bid for on the National League Bidding page, and each bid will be considered by me on its 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.
  
  There will be a summer foreign transfer window, which will run as follows.
  
  Open Window
  
  Open transfer window, teams have unlimited bids provided they have the financial resources to cover them.  Teams may only bid for one player at a time.
  
  The window will open from the 9th of June but only to those sides that finish 8th and below at first. They will have a week to make one signing each before the window is open to all.     
  

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

All released players will be deemed to have joined a Championship side and can be bid for on the National League Bidding page.

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 European Rugby Champions Cup, European Rugby Challenge Cup and Anglo Welsh Cup matches.  These games will take place once a week. A match thread will be put up every Monday. Home teams must be named by midnight on Tuesday. Away teams must be named by midnight on Wednesday. Failure to meet these deadlines is punishable by the addition of three match points to the oppositions final score, unless both sides fail to do so. Both teams must provide tactics by midnight on Thursday. Predictions will be open from 00:01 hours on Friday and remain open until 15:00 hours on Sunday. 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.

Managers are asked to provide detail as to why they have predicted a result.  To be considered a descriptive prediction this must be a full 3 lines long when entered into the text box. 

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:-

For domestic competition at least 8 England qualified players in your match day 23, and at least 4 of those must be in your starting XV.

For European competition at least 8 England qualified players in your match day 23, and at least 6 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 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.

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

£2m 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 upto a maximum of £5m per fine.

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 (SJE) will step in and players from within your squad will be released for the relevant financial compensation (foreign transfer value) in order to bring your budget back above minus £10 million.

What a clanger 
http://m.independent.ie/sport/rugby/munster-rugby/munster-deny-crisis-as-players-sent-damning-report-30549225.html

I wouldn't let JOC kick, he missed loads for us last season.  Showing his class ball in hand for Toulon though.

Ozzy3213 wrote:I wouldn't let JOC kick, he missed loads for us last season.  Showing his class ball in hand for Toulon though.

He looked dangerous ball in hand

Does anyone have Thorn or is he in releases?

Driver snapped him up

Smart man

Interesting thoughs on Hooper from an Aus fan on the main board:

"The backrow lacks balance as well. It may be controversial to say this but Hooper is not doing his core job. He has pace to burn and is a menace carrying up the ball. But my oh my how Australia missed the presence of Pocock, who is strong enough to stay over the ball and slow down ruck ball or turn it over. For all of Hooper's impressive work around the field, he simply failed miserably to slow down NZ ball. Quick ruck ball for NZ was up in the high 80s. You cannot allow NZ to operate with so much quick ball. They will hammer you with so much front ball. You can talk about an aging Richie McCaw all you like, but the guy knows you have to get your body into a position to slow down that ball. Obviously the blame cannot be laid solely at Hooper's feet but as a 7 he must take responsibility for Australia's failure to slow down NZ ball."

I tend to agree to be honest. Hooper is an incredible athlete and is superb at linking play/chasing defence but I just don't think he makes much impact as an actual 7. If you paired him with Pocock (if he ever comes back) you could have a cracking combo.

Hooper would be unreal at rugby league.

Aus for SA:

Australia

Israel Folau; Adam Ashley-Cooper, Tevita Kuridrani, Matt Toomua, Rob Horne; Bernard Foley, Nick Phipps; Wycliff Palu, Michael Hooper (capt), Scott Fardy; Rob Simmons, Sam Carter; Sekope Kepu, James Hanson, James Slipper

Replacements: Saia Fainga'a, Pek Cowan, Ben Alexander, James Horwill, Scott Higginbotham, Matt Hodgson, Nic White, Kurtley Beale

Look a little more structured.

Horwill back, needs to regain form as that's not a good lock combo at Int level.

Much better lineup a genuine 10 and Kurindrani back in.
Best lineup they have in terms of backs.

Agree that is a weak lock combo. On form horwill great. Simmons one of the worst int locks in I have seen

Phipps deserves a chance. White was awful in his games against NZ looked out of his depth.

Think Sam carter is very good. Amazed no one has bought him

Carter seems to have a good game then a bad. His technique in contact needs serious work.

Simmons is ok next to a big player but is just a work horse really, there's certainly worse out there but he's not top draw by a long shot.

AAC is wasted on wing, Aus miss a top option there.

anonmattyt wrote:Phipps deserves a chance. White was awful in his games against NZ looked out of his depth.

Nick Phipps has had the best year out of all the Aussie 9s , I'm not saying that because he is my player. He's cover defence is second to none and service is pretty quick.

I think it was a bit hard to chuck White in against the AB's, but then again who else would have really started given their current dilemmas at halfback. Oz really need to pick a pair and stick with them, as they have chopped and changed too much for any combos to really work out.

Budgets up to date 

Reports JSD has retired with immediate effect through injury

Gloucester have just confirmed it.

Yeah JSD has retired - what a pain!

Fluxy wrote:I think it was a bit hard to chuck White in against the AB's, but then again who else would have really started given their current dilemmas at halfback. Oz really need to pick a pair and stick with them, as they have chopped and changed too much for any combos to really work out.

White had 3 games vs France also. That's a fair run for me to work out he needs to go back to club rugby and work on his kicking as it's too slow and work on offering a threat around fringes in some way. Very easy to Read

anonmattyt wrote:Think Sam carter is very good. Amazed no one has bought him

I considered it but didn't want to stock up on Aussie forwards

dammit_chris wrote:Yeah JSD has retired - what a pain!

Very sad 


Utter genius and unlucky with injuries.

Who are you guys seeing as your clubs players to watch next season?

From Falcons i think our big players will be Dom Barrow (Immense last year) , Josh Furno and Pablo in the backs.


Quite keen to see how Weepu does at Welsh to be honest.

I'm also doing Sober October this year guys. 

If you've got a spare 1p feel free to donate to McMillan on my page.

https://www.gosober.org.uk/profile/mikedriver

For glos stooke looks immense pre season. Always a good ball carrier but has developed that aspect.

My brother weeny to all pre season games and said he has been different class along with hook.

Personally think hook will do well but will let us down at some point

anonmattyt wrote:

Fluxy wrote:I think it was a bit hard to chuck White in against the AB's, but then again who else would have really started given their current dilemmas at halfback. Oz really need to pick a pair and stick with them, as they have chopped and changed too much for any combos to really work out.

White had 3 games vs France also. That's a fair run for me to work out he needs to go back to club rugby and work on his kicking as it's too slow and work on offering a threat around fringes in some way. Very easy to Read

True mate, but a string of five games isn't the best way to generate a combination with someone, I just feel oz needed to have settled on their best side through the french tests and prior to that.

The randomness that Beale was chucked in at 10 can't have helped. They had a settled backline then throw a player in at 10 who hasn't played there all season??

Afoa & Hibbard will be big players for Gloucester. Their scrum was such a shambles last season.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:The randomness that Beale was chucked in at 10 can't have helped. They had a settled backline then throw a player in at 10 who hasn't played there all season??

Afoa & Hibbard will be big players for Gloucester. Their scrum was such a shambles last season.

Yes they will sort scrum out and wood will be back to his best. Can't scrum if your tight head and hooker getting murderd.

Our problem is depth. All back ups in front row are dross 

Yann Thomas etc

Wood has been pretty poor for a few seasons now, needs to step up with the better players besides him.

15 Willie le Roux, 14 Cornal Hendricks, 13 Jan Serfontein, 12 Jean de Villiers (captain), 11 Bryan Habana, 10 Morné Steyn, 9 Ruan Pienaar, 8 Duane Vermeulen, 7 Marcell Coetzee, 6 Francois Louw, 5 Victor Matfield, 4 Eben Etzebeth, 3 Jannie du Plessis, 2 Adriaan Strauss, 1 Tendai Mtawarira.

Substitutes: 16 Bismarck du Plessis, 17 Trevor Nyakane, 18 Marcel van der Merwe, 19 Lood de Jager, 20 Warren Whiteley, 21 Francois Hougaard, 22 Pat Lambie, 23 Damian de Allende


Pollard dropped??

More likely a case of they are playing a stronger side so the players who were being givengame time like Pollard and de Allende drop to the bench or out the squad as better players come in.

Im could really do with Serfontein being a machine at 13 for the sake of my squad. Relying on form of Rougerie and JJ to be top notch otherwise

SA very good with their squad rotation and building for the WC - they've got to be up there as favourites for that considering what the conditions could be like.

Lancaster slowly developing the strength in depth we need to compete.

Driver for Wasps I can't wait to see Wade back for us, not sure if he will start this weekend but for me the most exciting player to watch in the AP. Definitely deserves his chance for England if he can stay fit.

That's certainly a much stronger SA 23 than previous games

Anyone know when the All Blacks name their side?

Looking forward
To seeing barret start. Big fan. Prefer smith on the wing also

Manoa wasted at 8. Great player but out of place at 8 or 6. 

Fotuali struggled at saints. Weird as he is wc on his day

New players often take a while to gel. Green and Gold did a good article on it, I'll see if I can find it

Added brief tactics connection here as slow as dial up

Cannot wait for the weekend......proper rugby!

looking forward to watching tonights game!

Going to be such a competitive season this year, Gloucester, Wasps and Bath have all recruited very well and it is a bit of a free for all with the top 4 spots when you see how good Sarries, Saints, Tigers and Quins still are.

Lot of pundits saying that Falcons are favourites for relegation, not sure if they are as they've got some good players, the Italian flanker will make a big difference, they just seem to lack a decent no10.

anonmattyt wrote:Manoa wasted at 8. Great player but out of place at 8 or 6. 

Fotuali struggled at saints. Weird as he is wc on his day

Manoa much better in backrow imo. You lose his carrying in the engine room

Welsh are the unknown, I don't see how anyone not tip them as they've signed 26 players.

I fancy Welsh to get relegated but us and Irish will be in the mix I imagine.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:

anonmattyt wrote:Manoa wasted at 8. Great player but out of place at 8 or 6. 

Fotuali struggled at saints. Weird as he is wc on his day

Manoa much better in backrow imo. You lose his carrying in the engine room

Not just that, but you lose Day's line-out nouse which takes the pressure off Lawes as well. 

Although I do think he can be a bit lost at 8

Weird thing is Chiefs have been quiet and as have Sharks, and usually that is a good thing for them. But I have a feeling they might struggle this season and risk being caught up in the fight at the bottom.

Not sure Sale will but Exeter haven't recruited that well.

I think Falcons could go either way, we've got some good players in but I'm not sure of the coaching.

Irish have lost some real quality in the backs. Their pack looks a little stronger but I think they'll struggle. There's a lot of unknowns this season I think.

Exeter get the sort of players that go well with the rest of their team, but not the sort that will get them in the top 6 year after year - but without the HC this year they should be fine without all the tough games.

Really hope that Yarde kicks on this year at Quins, certainly joined the right club, but Quins have only signed 2 players this year and promoted academy players - be interesting to see how they'll go - though Saints just signed Hodgson from Falcons as their one signing. Must be salary cap related.

Saints have signed Fisher from Irish too

Fisher has the potential to be a great player, but I am absolutely 100% behind the clubs decision to release him.

I don't think we will be anywhere near the relegation scrap this year.