The Mentor Program

Hey guys and girls.

Simple enough for the new members, start a new topic, give us your BR manager name and club name. Then ask away .

Old members, anyone who feels they have the time to spare, and are willing to lend a hand, post a reply, and start getting stuck in giving that hard earned experience. First experienced manager to reply gets to be the mentor .

Chaps,

Still relatively new to the game, although just in the process of trying to establish the relative abilities of players.

While I'm suer that there are some of you who have put together tools to evaluate ability in defined positions, I won't ask for yuo to share what you've worked hard on.

However, if anyone out there could list the top 3-5 atributes for the positions, i'd be eternally grateful. Would give me a crack at modelling my own tool too, pardon the pun! For instance, am I better off going for a quick, light flank or a heavy-set, defensive chap?

So many, many variables!

Thanks all


Oh, and any friendlies knocking around? Bank balance is looking bare!

Check out (the small number) of articles here. It'll get you started. https://brengland.forumotion.com/f6-links-and-help

As to tools, Blackout Organiser (Brog), has position suggestions http://borganizerhq.altervista.org/

However, there are no hard and fast rules once you get past, stamina is important, defence is important. Locks should be tall, props heavy. And the person who takes your kicks should be good at kicking .

EDT - And friendlies don't earn income I'm afraid.

oh and howie.. For the flankers it depends on ur playing. Most people (well me anyway) use one fast flanker (speed wise) and one relatively fast flanker that has good rucking skills (technique + strength)

To be honest Howie, how you play is up to you. The game reflects reality well to a degree- Heavy, strong players will break tackles, players with no agility will get stepped, etc.

What I would say tallies quite well with Raggs' statements.

Stamina- Crucial for EVERYONE. My whole team (bar 2 trainees) are past Princely (12) and I'm still using 2 sessions of team training on it.

Defence- Again, Crucial for everyone. I think something that let me down previously is that my centres didn't have high enough defence.

Kicking- when you start out, crucial for one man, but for god's sake have a backup!! In division four, Princely kicking is an absolute godsend.

Now I'll go through the others, but bear in mind this is
my opinion and my interpretation of the game - and is by no means right. I don't think anyone's nailed it down yet to be honest.

Attack - Useful to have, but even without it you can score lucky tries. I'd limit training of this to three backs and a forward (probably number for now. Bear it in mind, the more you progress the more vital it is- as you come up against teams with much better defences.

Technique- Undervalued by myself definitely. Most important for backrow for open play and front row for scrums. Useful for all forwards, and can be surprisingly handy in the backs, especially fullback.

Jumping- Jury's out on how useful this is. I'm currently training some jumping backs to test this. Very definitely important for your 2nd row, especially if they're not the tallest (less than 200cm).

Agility- again something I've ignored to my detriment. Key for backs, handy for forwards. Almost moreso in defence than attack, as linebreaks pretty much pit your defence & agility against their attack & agility, that is, of course, if they are trying to go around, not through

Handling- Imperative for backs. Scrumhalf, flyhalf and centres all need good handling, and wings/fullback to a slightly lesser extent. Your hooker and lineout jumpers also need it. Since your lineout "Jumper" can be a prop or backrow, you pretty much need it for everyone anyway. A shoe in for team training alongside defence & stamina.

Strength- I'm an advocate of strength on every player. If I had to choose key positions, Props, locks, one centre, fullback. You might query fullback but i'll get to that in a bit.

Speed- Seems to be one of the hardest skills to train, and unless an international winger comes on the TM, you rarely see a player to buy with better than Amazing(14) speed. Obvious choices are wingers, fullback. Having it on your centres is highly advisable, and the current thinking seems to be that fast players get to rucks faster, so your scrumhalf and at least one backrow forward too. Currently high on my priority list - again though, that's just my opinion...

Since I'm getting into the swing of this, I'll go quickly by player - top 4 skills. The order is my personal value of importance, but you should make your own decisions based on what gameplan you want to follow. Stamina is assumed for everyone as the most important skill:

Props: strength, technique, defence, handling
Hooker: Handling, technique, strength, defence
Locks: Strength, Handling, Jumping, technique
Backrow: Technique, defence, speed, strength
Halfbacks: Handling, kicking, attack, defence
Centres: Handling, defence, agility, strength or speed
Wings: Attack, agility, speed, handling

And the special case - Fullback: For a new team, I can't stress the importance of a good fullback enough. Ideally - he needs to be good at everything, because his primary job is as a sweeper who can stop any linebreak in its tracks. So obviously stamina, defence, agility for the nimble ones, strength for the strong ones, speed for the quick ones, and kicking to kick you out of trouble. Also, having good technique can help get turnovers, and handling and attack allow him to be a threat when you're going forward, so on a fullback there is solid justification for EVERY skill. I undervalued fullbacks in the past and it's cost me dearly, hence why I'm training an U20 standard one now

Anyway, I know I've rambled a bit, but I hope this helps. Remember it's your decision what strategy you want to follow, and all this is still only my speculation. But I've tried and failed at this game once already, so you can learn from some of my mistakes

Best of luck to you, and don't be afraid to ask any questions of us dinosaurs, we love it

Cheers chaps, great starts to work on tailoring my initial evaluation model then!

And a shame about the frendlies side of thing. What purpose do they serve, apart from tiring out my players?

thursday friendlies dont tire you out or get ur players injured. Monday friendlies change your ranking slightly and basiclaly does everything a league match does except no money

more IGT (In Game Training) as well, its not alot but every little helps. you will find over a few seasons of always playing friendlies your team will be much better than a team that started the same time as you but never plays any friendlies

I have a couple of questions which would probably clutter the chat so here they are !

I currently have 10 scouting stars available , is it the right time to promote from the academy ?
How often to promote ? I saw an article on "diminishing returns " on over 10 stars , how valid is this ?

I want to get comfortable with the game before upgrading to premium so ... How do I decide who to promote ? Gut feel ?, match reports ?

Do players' salaries get paid after the league games finish , I'm thinking weeks 15 & 16. ?

How long is the closed season ? And does anything happen at the season update like in some other sports games ?

Cheers
LF

I think for a club that's just starting maybe pull players with 20 stars each time, should give you noticeably better players than 10 star and won't waste to much from diminishing returns.

Premium doesn't really give you much advantage when promoting youth players, if you have a youth manager you will be able to see there skills whether you are premium or not.

Player salaries are paid Tuesday morning of every round.

There is no closed season except for maybe round 16 when relegation/promotion matches are played and you might have nothing to do... but after round 16 a new season starts again.

Hope that helps you out a bit mate

Cheers Harmsy , that's fine !

One thing to remember with the youths if you don't have premium - write down how many stars you spent! I can't stress it enough. You will forget, and there is no way of finding out how many you spent until you promote them.

Although having said that it might be possible for a premium manager to check for you, but I'll have to double-check that one first.

Thanks Zec .

Another question .. is there a downside for fielding a young lineup ? eg : average age of 22 ?
Is this where experience comes into play ?

Yeah you can check other players youth squad pulls for stars.

The Zec wrote:To be honest Howie, how you play is up to you. The game reflects reality well to a degree- Heavy, strong players will break tackles, players with no agility will get stepped, etc.

...

Best of luck to you, and don't be afraid to ask any questions of us dinosaurs, we love it

I really enjoyed this particular post! Not only the insight, but also the style of writing and usage of words.