Season 24 - The agony and ecstasy of virtual rugby management

FewFew · 18-01-2015 5:30pm #1

Well gents and ladies, how is everyone fairing in Season 24?

CSDS' look finally failed an we've found ourselves back in Div III. Time to completely gut the team (long overdue) and build for a brighter future. Amazing how the lads I considered my "youngsters" are now approaching 29. Will probably be gone before I get back into Div II.

For me, success this season will be measured more by team development than positioning, but I will hope to win my league, if only to invest the winnings.

morgan62 · 18-01-2015 9:54pm

im looking decent in my league two normals two bp wins should have been wnwim but still happy hoping to make playoffs again would be nice

Zagato · 18-01-2015 10:54pm

I've had a dream start. Effluo seemed to throw his home fixture against me (or assume I was going to throw it) and then I beat Vitamin G who I guess underestimated me, but still should have kicked my ass. 10 days ago I would have said there's no way I'll be able to stay up, but looks like I have a reasonable chance at staying up in Div II for the first time

eoferrall · 20-01-2015 10:34am

I'm with FEWI above, bounced down to DIV III this season and so will be rebuilding. went through the squad and noted that I was very thin on players, and had a few probably out of position as their skills don't really suit where I was playing by default.

BIG overhaul needed - wish could train more than 3 at a time (especially with an international sucking in slots!)

seanand · 20-01-2015 12:47pm

Jesus I'd hate to be in div3, only poor managers in div3 :P

Hope that doesn't come back and bite me in the ads for next season ha

eoferrall · 20-01-2015 12:58pm

seanand wrote: »

Jesus I'd hate to be in div3, only poor managers in div3 :P

Hope that doesn't come back and bite me in the ads for next season ha

to be fair it is half true, I have not paid much attention to the new tactics etc and have been beaten by teams of similar quality and lesser (in CSR terms).

Or maybe I am delusional - and thus yes a bad manager so!

New aim for the season, beat Seanie. Yes Seanie I am calling you out!!:mad:

seanand · 20-01-2015 1:14pm

eoferrall wrote: »

to be fair it is half true, I have not paid much attention to the new tactics etc and have been beaten by teams of similar quality and lesser (in CSR terms).

Or maybe I am delusional - and thus yes a bad manager so!

New aim for the season, beat Seanie. Yes Seanie I am calling you out!!:mad:

ya i dont want to be the one to break it to you but i already beat you this season :cool:

well looking at your team id sell off all your old fellows and bring in just enough to come 2nd and build from there your league is awful easy

eoferrall · 20-01-2015 11:35pm

seanand wrote: »

ya i dont want to be the one to break it to you but i already beat you this season :cool:

well looking at your team id sell off all your old fellows and bring in just enough to come 2nd and build from there your league is awful easy

Holy crap - just had a look at the teams age and like all of them are over 30 nearly... when did that happen!??! they were only sproglets the other day!

Serious rebuild required, thanks for the highlight Seanie.

You may have, but I wasn't paying attention in round 1... and i was crying over my relegation!

seanand · 21-01-2015 1:12am

eoferrall wrote: »

Holy crap - just had a look at the teams age and like all of them are over 30 nearly... when did that happen!??! they were only sproglets the other day!

Serious rebuild required, thanks for the highlight Seanie.

You may have, but I wasn't paying attention in round 1... and i was crying over my relegation!

Old fellows sell well these days you'll be fine

Well it was my default team so I'll pay attention next time too

FewFew · 08-02-2015 1:12pm

eoferrall wrote: »

Holy crap - just had a look at the teams age and like all of them are over 30 nearly... when did that happen!??! they were only sproglets the other day!

Serious rebuild required, thanks for the highlight Seanie.

You may have, but I wasn't paying attention in round 1... and i was crying over my relegation!

I hear that. My "young lads" are now turning 30, while my recently purchased trainees are now somehow in their early 20s. Time flies when you're living on a yearly basis and your players on a seasonal one.

My member contentment is right back up there and I'm earning good money, all thanks to taking a punt and TNTing Deise in the cup. Now to be fair, he did say he'd sold off most of his old players and was also rebuilding, but I did savour beating a superior team. Think I have one player over 300k, one player over 200k and all the rest are just lads with guts.

daheff · 10-02-2015 3:45pm

its been a quiet start to the season from most people around here :eek:

Well I've had as good a start as I could hope for. 4 wins from 5. I reckon another 3 or 4 wins and I'll have secured a promotion playoff :cool: -still have a couple of my bogey teams to play though

Still in the cup, but playing a div 2 team (Mighty Maks) this time out. might be a tough ask to go too much further.

this season I'm hoping to go one or two steps further than previous years. I'm hoping to at least get to the divisional final (or god forbid win & get promoted)....but Crisco/daveharnett might have a thing or two to say about that!

Div II.1 got a little lucky this season - we got rid of Greyhound (no that wasn't the lucky part

) and got a very much weakened mauling bear in his place. So unless Mauling Bear go nuts and buy loads of top players, the strength of the league has dropped over the last 2 seasons (Dread0s went up and Tralee have come down- they aren't really logging in much and players are declining).

Teams that came up over the this season are reasonably tough though. Still a league where anybody can beat anybody on their day.

Zagato · 10-02-2015 5:17pm

I'm having a pretty good attempt at my second time in Div 2 with 4 wins out of 5, so I reckon if I get another 2 wins, should guarantee avoiding auto relegation. Some surprising victories so far against...... well all of my wins have been somewhat unexpected to be honest, but particularly Vitamin G and High Voltage I guess. Derby match coming up this weekend...

I'm still in the cup with Tropic Thunder at home tomorrow. I guess I'll go in as favourite, but the CSR difference is not that huge so will have to be cautious.

Icing on the cake is unbeaten in Boards League. I've never come better than 3rd in 10 or more seasons of Boards League, and have promoted from Div 5 to Div 2 over the seasons by default rather than reward. Would be nice to earn a promotion for a change.

Phonehead · 10-02-2015 9:24pm

Good season, unbeaten in the league and cup and somehow I'm in the last 8 of the new Champions Cup competition, playing Englands No.1 team at home on Sunday and I'm going to need all the luck I can as there's a decent gap between us in squad strength.

seanand · 11-02-2015 12:52am

so was knocked out of the cup by vitamin g 20-28 but he normalled ah well my priority is the league and staying up. And its going good got two wins and saved energy aswell could of pushed my team and gone for two more wins but really wanted to test my team.

my zim team is struggling big time im going to give it one more season as my nat trainees will be finished training and hopefully they can do magic because with lvl5s and full ya its hard to be making money for players and i could use some money for a bigger salary

Gelio · 12-02-2015 10:28am

Haven't posted here in a while!

Currently top in div 1 in Russia but it's a two horse race this year.

Into quater final of cup too.

Geraldine is now on 37 wins out of the last 38 games in all competitions, but have a few tricky fixtures coming up

seanand · 18-02-2015 12:26pm

daheff wrote: »

Teams that came up over the this season are reasonably tough though. Still a league where anybody can beat anybody on their day.

damn straight haha were tough haha

seasons going very good 50% win record in div2 i reckon one more win will make me safe unless mauling bear wakes up from hibernation

crisco10 · 18-02-2015 12:36pm

Yeah Div 2.1 is not the strongest it has ever been this season. Can't believe I'm 6 from 6. Do not expect this to last. lol. Although, I'm still smarting from the tap and go from my scrum half in the 75th minute in the Playoff final last season. If I'm within a score of the Div 2 title this season I'll be happy.

Having fun, just tipping away in the cup too. But really looking at succession management in a few key positions too, would be great if I could maintain Div 2 status throughout the refresh. We'll see.

seanand · 18-02-2015 12:58pm

crisco10 wrote: »

Yeah Div 2.1 is not the strongest it has ever been this season. Can't believe I'm 6 from 6. Do not expect this to last. lol. Although, I'm still smarting from the tap and go from my scrum half in the 75th minute in the Playoff final last season. If I'm within a score of the Div 2 title this season I'll be happy.

Having fun, just tipping away in the cup too. But really looking at succession management in a few key positions too, would be great if I could maintain Div 2 status throughout the refresh. We'll see.

#illbeatunext #notreally

jesus with you going rebuilding ill surely make the playoffs soon at this rate

eoferrall · 18-02-2015 6:24pm

crisco10 wrote: »

Yeah Div 2.1 is not the strongest it has ever been this season. Can't believe I'm 6 from 6. Do not expect this to last. lol. Although, I'm still smarting from the tap and go from my scrum half in the 75th minute in the Playoff final last season. If I'm within a score of the Div 2 title this season I'll be happy.

Having fun, just tipping away in the cup too. But really looking at succession management in a few key positions too, would be great if I could maintain Div 2 status throughout the refresh. We'll see.

damn it - now I wish I'd managed to stay up!! but I am walking Div III so will stay here fore another season I think while I train up a new bunch.

must finish selling my oldies!

Phonehead · 18-02-2015 7:37pm

Pretty much 16 of my 22 players are in decline, I don't have the time or the ambition at this moment in time to start the rebuild! The only trophy I haven't won is the cup as I've always focused on the division 1 crown, I think I'll focus 100% on the cup and then quietly sell my squad and farm for a few seasons until I have the time to rebuild, I might actually focus on My Japanese team and try to turn them into my main team

seanand · 18-02-2015 9:27pm

boo wex sounds like a quitter to me ha

Phonehead · 18-02-2015 9:34pm

Well I haven't been a buying team, when I look at most other division 1 teams they have spent vast sums just to get there. I really couldn't be bothered buying in a batch of 30 year olds and continuing that cycle, it really doesn't interest me. I have too many NT trainees who have at least 4 or 5 seasons left on full slots so I can't rebuild in the manner I want. I can use my Japanese team though as they have no trainees

seanand · 18-02-2015 10:23pm

so the plan is sell save up and buy 20-25 yr olds when you have enough money? i know your pain for nats on training bloody useless they are just eat money

Phonehead · 25-02-2015 7:46pm

seanand wrote: »

so the plan is sell save up and buy 20-25 yr olds when you have enough money? i know your pain for nats on training bloody useless they are just eat money

No, I've decided and excited about it! I'm going to pump all my energy into my youth squad and then try to climb back to the top with a team of players mostly made up of my squad.

seanand · 25-02-2015 10:13pm

Phonehead wrote: »

No, I've decided and excited about it! I'm going to pump all my energy into my youth squad and then try to climb back to the top with a team of players mostly made up of my squad.

Thatll be tough and itll be a long road at that. hope you have a full ya already? otherwise itll be 3-5 seasons before youll be producing good players

daheff · 26-02-2015 11:57am

sounds like a good plan Wex....so what you going to do...pump out 4-5 ya players a season and train them for a couple of seasons? or pump out 15 in one go and give them lvl 5 2 sessions each?

daheff · 13-04-2015 1:18pm

So I made the playoffs this season with my main team (FRF) and avoided automatic relegation with my affiliate. More happy my affiliate stayed up to be honest.

My playoff is away vs Bogwarriors. Ended up throwing the last match of the season to conserve energy (sorry Seanand!) ..lost out on home advantage by 10points in the end.

Reckon that could be very important in the end. anyways roll on the playoffs!! :cool:

seanand · 13-04-2015 4:01pm

daheff wrote: »

So I made the playoffs this season with my main team (FRF) and avoided automatic relegation with my affiliate. More happy my affiliate stayed up to be honest.

My playoff is away vs Bogwarriors. Ended up throwing the last match of the season to conserve energy (sorry Seanand!) ..lost out on home advantage by 10points in the end.

Reckon that could be very important in the end. anyways roll on the playoffs!! :cool:

Iv no shame in admitting I'm shouting for bogwarriors Wednesday just so I get a little satisfaction from missing out last Sat.

All in all Iv had a great season finished well safe in 5th and looking at rankings I should have a weak enough relegation playoff game.
To actually have a chance for playoffs was an achievement looking forward to next season already

daheff · 13-04-2015 5:06pm

seanand wrote: »

Iv no shame in admitting I'm shouting for bogwarriors Wednesday just so I get a little satisfaction from missing out last Sat.

Don't shout too hard...hes got the jinx over me...seems to pull it out of the bag whenever he needs to.:eek:

I'll be shouting for the team you play in the relegation/promotion playoff so

errlloyd · 13-04-2015 9:04pm

So lads, been playing for a year (but only started concentrating recently) I topped my league with all wins, so I am hoping to get promoted again, but I am most happy with my under 20s. Only really began caring a few weeks ago, they actually lost their first two games against unmanaged teams, but they have won every game since, and I have really boosted their average rating.

Dunno if I will stay in Div3, but I am happy enough to bounce up and down one more time.

morgan62 · 13-04-2015 10:40pm

well topped my leagues with both my teams welsh team should win league and promote irish team hopefully a final but not sure and no chance of promotion but id say that was a good run from my main team considering i have the 4th best team csr wise in the league.

Season 24 - The agony and ecstasy of virtual rugby management

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