BD, Following the general theme of improving the structure of the tour can something be done to change the B tour structure?
First of all why do we insist on the insanity of restricting ourselves to formats that allow any team to win? After Tour 1 there is no way that team outside the top 8 let alone the top 16 is going to win the B tour. We accept that this is true in the A tour so why not admit it in the B tour where the gap between the top and bottom is significantly larger. Why not have a different format for the B tour? Why not use a format that gives the top and bottom teams a better standard of game against teams more of their ability? I would suggest: B Tour Top 16 Saturday Four pools of four (takes three rounds) 5-12 crossovers for placement into the quarter finals Sunday Q, S, F for 1st Q, S, F for 9th Run on 4 pitched this format requires 7 rounds on the Saturday and 6 rounds on the Sunday. If you play from 9-6 that equates to something like 60 minute games with 10 minutes for the cap on Saturday and either longer games or longer caps on the Sunday. B Tour Bottom N (N <= 16) (The C Tour) Use what ever format suits for the number of teams that are entered. Using a maximum of 4 pitches. B-C Tour Crossover round Last thing on the Saturday run a crossover round between the bottom 4 in the B tour and the top 4 in the C tour for promotion/relegation between the two halves. With my previous suggestion for the A tour format to use pools of four you would get: A Tour: 8 pitches, 6 games of 90 minutes, 60 minutes rest B Tour top 16: 4 pitches, 7 games of 60+ minutes, 70 minutes rest C Tour bot N: <=4 pitches, ~7 games of 60+ minutes, 70 minutes rest Women's Tour: 2 pitches, 7 games of 60+ minutes, 70 minutes rest Wouldn't that be a fairer and better system with more meaning full longer games for all teams in all divisions? If you had a full C tour of 16 teams you would need 18 pitches. If like at tour 2 you had only 13 teams for the C tour you could easily write a schedule that used 3 pitches for the C Tour. JP __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://zion.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
