Season 8 Homepage II

2014/2015 – London Wasps

2013/2014 – London Wasps
2012/2013 – Leicester Tigers
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 (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 23 players.  Players who are in the academy must be born on or after 1st September 1993.

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. Worcester Warriors & London Wasps will receive two additional bids to be used exclusively on academy age players. These players must be bid for on the National League Bidding page, and each bid will be considered by the RFU 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 the RFU 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.
  Player Draft
  Worcester Warriors & London Wasps will participate in a player draft beginning the week of June 22nd. Both sides will be allowed to draft two players each. The draft picks will go as follows; 1. Worcester 2. Wasps 3. Wasps 4. Worcester.
  
  Round Bidding
  There will be two rounds of bidding. The first window will run the week starting June 29th and the second the week starting July 3rd. All sides will be allowed to sign one player each during the window. These bids are not protected if you do not have the funds in place to bid during the window you will lose the bid.    
  
  Open Bidding
  From July 13th the foreign market will be open to all bids similar to previous seasons. Due to the world cup the window will remain open till the end of September.
  

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 20:00 hours on Sunday. Managers will pm 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
Bonuses will be awarded on a scaled basis i.e. 2m for 5 games, 1.6m for 4 games and so on
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.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:No, LCD was just dreadful. Just watching 2nd half again.

George's missed throws seemed to be more the French reading it and contesting it. LCD just threw all over the place with nobody standing a chance. He's just not anywhere near this level.

French scrum got on top slightly but lost it when subs came on (Antonio & ??). Hard to judge too much as that pitch was a disgrace.

Cips did ok, as did Attwood & Mako off the bench.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:George is a good 2 seasons ahead of LCD in quality. I honestly don't know why LCD was ever in the squad.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Guscott doesn't pick Burgess or Cips, I tend to agree. If you're only going 2 x FH it has to be Ford & Farrell.

Steven_Sharks wrote:Burrell got go forward. He made yards when he got it. Didn't take a single ball in space.

JJ was not as threatening as usual. Robshaw and Haskell added nothing and Billy only woke up in last 20. Brown and nowell were decent May a disaster.

All subs brought something.

Steven_Sharks wrote:The lineout was a concern. It's like Chouly new the calls.

France were brilliant for 60 mins. Picamoles, Huget and Tilous-Borde were genuinely world class. They will be pleased. Very pleased.


Bring Dusatoir in for Le Roux and you have your first choice I think.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Burrell was pretty decent I thought. May was horrendous though, never realised how bad he was under the high ball.

11. Nowell
14. Watson
15. Brown

Looks a cert at the minute.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Ford looked more rusty I thought.

Steve is spot on, May was a disaster. You can't play wing and be that bad under the high ball. Luckily he's been found out early. May slipped off so many tackles too. Is it too late to bring back Yarde?

Ozzy3213 wrote:

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Burrell was pretty decent I thought. May was horrendous though, never realised how bad he was under the high ball.

11. Nowell
14. Watson
15. Brown

Looks a cert at the minute.

It does, but the question is, is it right?

It appears plainly evident that England are better with 2 distributors in the backline.  That means, one of Slade, Cipriani or Goode has to play, unless we go 10. Ford 12. Farrell.  The issue with that is that Farrell lacks a genuine running/carrying threat so is unlikely to tie any defenders in and create space outside.  We alos have seen tat we can't rely on the pack to get us over the gainline, so we need a couple of backs who can do so.  Nowell, May, JJ, Watson can all do it finding gaps, but none can make hard yards if needed.  Burgess???  I don't like it, but it seems like he is the only back who can do that.  Quite how you balance those issues in selection is a difficult question to answer.

Before that, the pack issues need addressing anyway.  As I have been for a while, I am genuinely concerned that we may not make it out of the pool stage.

Ozzy3213 wrote:I'd start Farrell at 10 Pooly.  Ford has buckled under pressure in big games more than once.  That has to be a worry.

Sgt_Pooly wrote:May will be lucky to make the bench after that performance

Ozzy3213 wrote:

Sgt_Pooly wrote:Burrell was pretty decent I thought. May was horrendous though, never realised how bad he was under the high ball.

11. Nowell
14. Watson
15. Brown

Looks a cert at the minute.

It does, but the question is, is it right?

It appears plainly evident that England are better with 2 distributors in the backline.  That means, one of Slade, Cipriani or Goode has to play, unless we go 10. Ford 12. Farrell.  The issue with that is that Farrell lacks a genuine running/carrying threat so is unlikely to tie any defenders in and create space outside.  We alos have seen tat we can't rely on the pack to get us over the gainline, so we need a couple of backs who can do so.  Nowell, May, JJ, Watson can all do it finding gaps, but none can make hard yards if needed.  Burgess???  I don't like it, but it seems like he is the only back who can do that.  Quite how you balance those issues in selection is a difficult question to answer.

Before that, the pack issues need addressing anyway.  As I have been for a while, I am genuinely concerned that we may not make it out of the pool stage.