Earlier today, a couple of people mentioned a Tour qualifier, though
referring to it as Tour 0 seems to have led to some confusion.
My idea, which a couple of people seem to have picked up on already,
is as follows. (Let the record show, by the way, that I suggested
this a year ago, not just as a response to the Tour 1B problems...)
The top teams wanted only three tours for reasons of exhaustion. Most
people I know from lower teams were quite happy with four. We can use
this to our advantage by running the first tournament (Tour 0, Tour
Qualifier, something like that) without the top 8 teams from the
previous year. Everybody from 9th downwards plays in a tournament
which then has 8 A-tour spots available. This will give us a much
better chance of having the best 16 teams at tour one, without
forcing the GB players to play too often.
Advantages:
- Teams like Fire 2 could miss nationals for squad reasons without
then making a mockery of the B tour the next year.
- Newly formed teams with real talent could get straight into the A
tour for tour one.
- The above means that there's a fair chance for teams who should be
ranked around 15th to 18th to actually get promoted at the actual B
tour one. With the current system, the likelihood of some really good
misseeded teams taking the promotion spots makes that tough. Last
year, Discuits didn't get promoted until tour 2, but ended up ninth.
- The teams who want more tour experience will get it, and those who
want just three a year will get that (if they're good enough).
Difficulties:
- It's a bugger to schedule in such a way that the right 8 teams
qualify (octuple elimination anyone?). Nevertheless, it would be a
great deal fairer than the current system where a good new team must
spend a minimum of 1/3 of the season in the wrong tour.
Can someone convince me this is a bad idea?
Benji
__________________________________________________
BritDisc mailing list
[email protected]
http://mailman.ranulf.net/mailman/listinfo/britdisc
Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/informed.asp
