A newbie guide

Hey All,

I recently introduced a friend to the game, and have been considering starting an affiliate for a while, as I've learned some of the ropes over a couple of seasons. However - faced with trying to advise my buddy how to approach the initial stages of setting up, I realised I wasn't really sure how to prioritise the key activities. The focus here has been trying to develop a winning ENgland team at both U20 and senior level so that seemed like a decent objective - but I wasn't sure how to go about it.

So - I asked the Ian McGeechan of Blackout Rugby, our own esteemed Wing, what he did when he set up an affiliate as I was interested to see his view. This is the first part of an answer - he tipped the hat to Beardface and Raggs for some advice too, so I will try and do a little chat with them by way of follow up, for anyone who's interested, and post any further observations or advice here as they come.

mattjair : so wing, when you started afresh with your affiliate, what was your priority order in terms of YA / coaches / stadium / new players etc? what would your recommendations be for someone doing that?
mattjair : nice easy question for you...

@ wing : fix stadium first
@ wing : ask raggs how
@ wing : then don’t spend any money on youth academy at all
@ wing : don’t even upgrade to level 2 coaches
@ wing : just hire all level 1 buy 3 17 year olds and set training
@ wing : buy the best discipline you can
@ wing : aim for a team full of at least controlled players
@ wing : or controlled flawless and collected
@ wing : throughout the squad

mattjair : the coaching is interesting - is that because for the first couple of seasons with crap players, level 1 coaches are good enough?

@ wing : its too expensive
@ wing : all the money you don’t spend can be spent on buying a dominant young team
@ wing : win your league and get rich

mattjair : so effectively, just stadium, then buy better and better players as the opportunity presents
mattjair : don't worry about growing them, leave that to someone else?

@ wing : you can choose to join beardfaces affiliate U20 farm teams or not
@ wing : make sure you always make a weekly profit
@ wing : do enough to win your league and keep winning it with as little expenditure as you can
@ wing : which won’t be hard against bots and new managers
@ wing : buy level 1 coaches just to tick you over

mattjair : you mind if i copy this into a thread somewhere to keep as a record?
mattjair : i wanna try it...

@ wing : go for it
@ wing : my affiliate team is half way to having a flawless first 15 throughout
@ wing : but i got lazy
@ wing : i would recommend trying to get as close to a full flawless team as possible though
@ wing : and i have the top 22 csr players in the league after my first season and a half
mattjair : hahaha
mattjair : seriously?
@ wing : aye
@ wing : and a million in the bank

mattjair : did you spend anything on the stadium or just players on bargains?
@ wing : if you plan on being an u20 trainer you wont need an academy
@ wing : get rich and buy englishmen
@ wing : i fixed my stadium in my first week

mattjair : thanks fella, this is really interesting
mattjair : gonna post this chat into a thread in the mentoring section for other rookies to benefit from

@ wing : ok as long as it makes sense
@ wing : any English affiliate can use it
mattjair : i will edit it a bit without all the other comments.
@ wing : nice one mate

mattjair : anything else you'd like to add...?
@ wing : not sure
@ wing : although team training speed is an experiment I’m going through with mine
@ wing : take or leave that option
@ wing : but in a new league doing something nobody else is doing might work well
@ wing : i also tried to buy fast forwards
@ wing : but if there is another uncommon tactic you wanna try go for it
mattjair : thank you very much
mattjair : might make an interesting thread for people over the next few seasons
@ wing : you could also find all the heavy players you can aged 17-20 and buy them all
@ wing : i would have done that too but you can’t do everything
mattjair : love that idea,a FAT team...
@ wing : yeah, proper fat
mattjair : minimum weight 115k backs, 125k forwards...
@ wing : yup - you need to see something
@ wing : http://www.blackoutrugby.com/game/club.squad.php?squad=10519#squad=10519&player=all&sort=weight
MiniMan7895 : holy crap they’re heavy
mattjair : 158kg! lol - bet they get some shove in the scrum
MiniMan7895 : 25 stone
@ wing : yup, i would think so

mattjair : right - i will post this then quiz raggs for an easy to understand stadium guide, then come back and talk to beard about how to get into his farm team for the u20's setup
@ wing : ok
mattjair : last quick check - did you do anything to your facilities? upgrade the senior ones perhaps?
@ wing : well yeah just level 1
mattjair : to max out training slots?
@ wing : beard will explain that he has it planned out
mattjair : aha ok, i will track him down...
@ wing : just level 1 for starters though don’t rush
mattjair : ok. no need to worry about that or better coaches until you start getting players with much better csr i assume?
@ wing : well yeah
@ wing : plus it costs more
@ wing : and the goal is to prepare to buy expensive U20 players
@ wing : beard has it all fathomed out
@ wing : just level 1 for starters though don’t rush

So - big thanks to Wing, and more to come when I catch some more of our experienced players in the chatroom...

Cheers

matt

I'd take a slightly different approach if starting from scratch. But only a different approach, there are many ways to do it, and I guess the most important one is to have fun. Though for anyone wanting to follow my plan, it's a long and actually quite boring approach.

I would:

Right away

Scrap standing in the stadium
Fire 6 players from your squad, not the 6 worst though pick from the higher earning players.
Hire a YA scout, just lvl 1.
Do nothing else

After 8-10 weeks begin building the YA. This will mean in the first instance hiring and building a lvl 1, just coach and facilities (you've already got the scout, ignore manager for now)

Then over time (say after another 8-10 weeks), and so as no contracts need to be paid up advance to a lvl 2 YA, and if you want hire a lvl 1 manager too.

And as soon as possible after that advance to a lvl 3 YA, just for coach and facilities. You can advance manager to a lvl 2, but then both manager and scout can stay as lvl 2s for a long time, forever if one so chooses.

Once you start training in a lvl 3 YA begin hiring and opening senior training facilities. I'd sugest just attack and defence trainers (and just 1 of each) to go alongside the coach, progress as quickly and cheapy as possible to lvl 3 senior training, that's facilities, coach and trainers.

You should only hire 1 x attack and defence trainers at both lvl 1 and lvl 2. If you want to advance to lvl 4 training ASAP the same holds true for lvl 3, but I'd suggest staying with lvl 3 senior training for 5-6 seasons, and hence hire 2 trainers each for attack and defence. You may also want to start hiring for lvl 3 stamina and kicking trainers, NB once you've advertised for coaches/trainers you can fire existing ones at what will be the lower level to reduce costs.

In all this time I'd promote if possible, but not spend any money on the TM to achieve such, which will mean accepting getting relegated at least every other season back to Div V.

if being in Div V is too much to take, think perhaps of starting again, and doing so in a far smaller country than England.

I have to say I take a little bit of pride that step one is "Ask Raggs"