4NCL North 2015-16

[Roger de Coverly]

16 teams would be great (up from 13 last year) and an even number of teams would be ideal

With the North a small pool playing 11 rounds, arbiters run the risk of not being able to pair final rounds without the same teams meeting twice. That's perhaps the advantage of manual pairings, that they can check that a round 9 with hypothetical plausible results allows a legal set of pairings for rounds 10 and 11. I suppose the other way is to use an all play all chart and make subjective decisions over the strength of teams and thus the pairings which don't take place.

[Mick Norris]

It worked last year with triangular matches and 13 teams, I'm sure it can cope this year with whatever gets thrown at it

[Roger de Coverly]

It worked last year with triangular matches and 13 teams

Last year only needed six rounds before the amalgamation with the rest, so pairing the final rounds wasn't required.

[David Robertson]

I'll get out of my depth pretty quickly by toying with ideas. But anyway...

Could a model work with two APAs, 8 per pool. Then a C and D pool, as for Div 1 and 2?

[Mick Norris]

It could, but a Swiss has been specified in the rules, so no choice I guess

The trouble with 2 APAs is that you are almost bound to get stuck with 1 being stronger than the other, given we don't know the strength of the teams (particularly, but not exclusively the new ones)

Of course, we will no doubt moan about the seeding for the round 1 pairings wonder if our 2nd team will be seeded ahead of our 1st team, based on last year's results

[IM Jack Rudd]

Of course, we will no doubt moan about the seeding for the round 1 pairings wonder if our 2nd team will be seeded ahead of our 1st team, based on last year's results

I think the rules for the 4NCL state that if a squad has multiple teams, they are treated for seeding purposes as if they finished in seeding order, even if they didn't. (Thus last season Barbican 1 played in the seeding place that Barbican 2 had achieved, and vice versa.)

[MartinCarpenter]

If the teams are as they were last season - ie nearly all full of 170/80 players - then I'm not sure there'd be much purpose to splitting things. Even if the final rounds end up needing huge up/down floats the matches will still be credible fights.

Hopefully no triangles anyway. Really confusing things to play in those.

I wonder what sort of score you're looking at to win things/come second. I can't think of any team that is likely to be more than slight favourites vs many of the other teams, so maybe 8.5 or 9 with a mass pile up on 8/11 for second?

3C's 2 is very welcome. Don't think I'd expect a second Jorvik team. The odd player distracted by real life (me by hills ). Think a really big numbers boost would take an influx of (notably in some cases) weaker Yorkshire teams. Give it time perhaps.

[David Robertson]

So a two-pool APA isn't technically ruled out: Swiss regs can be dumped in time if the will is there.

I think we should keep the idea alive, and think it through. Swisses aren't better than APAs or other formats if they can be avoided. And the two-pool APA has its problems and imperfections too. But whatever the imperfections of the model, it makes for hugely exciting competition in the closely-fought Div 2 - worth every ounce of imperfection. In a thoroughly competitive Div 3N, it could be galvanising. Think on

[Roger de Coverly]

Swiss regs can be dumped in time if the will is there.

They could probably be bent to near breaking point. Pair the first seven rounds in one go. Then at the end of round 7, pair the remaining four. It doesn't have to look like a double all play all, but it probably could. There's certainly precedent for pairing more than one round at a time.

[Mike Truran]

So a two-pool APA isn't technically ruled out: Swiss regs can be dumped in time if the will is there.

I expect if we finished up with exactly 16 teams we would probably have a chat about it.

Roger's idea is an interesting one that I confess to not having even thought about. I guess though that with no relegation from Division 3 North (yet!) quite a lot of the tension would be removed from one of the pools in the final four rounds?

[David Robertson]

I guess though that with no relegation from Division 3 North (yet!) quite a lot of the tension would be removed from one of the pools in the final four rounds?

You'd be surprised what a prize fund of £50, and a Mars bar each, will do

[Mick Norris]

I guess though that with no relegation from Division 3 North (yet!) quite a lot of the tension would be removed from one of the pools in the final four rounds?

You'd be surprised what a prize fund of £50, and a Mars bar each, will do

Absolutely

There's no tension down in the lower reaches with a swiss either, just a quiet determination to win, or at least draw, each match

[MartinCarpenter]

I'd imagine that bending the swiss system a bit will likely be worthwhile - it'll be close enough to an APA that a pure swiss could well produce some strange effects.

Trying to make sure that the top teams play a few of the weaker ones in the early rounds say, as otherwise they'll just end up doing it on the final weekend.

There's also actually due to be a non trivial issue with all the clubs fielding multiple teams. Surely very hard to keep them apart over 11 rounds? Especially with say MM1/2 who could very easily both be challenging for a promotion place, but Bradford B could also end up quite close to Bradford A etc.

I know this won't amuse Mick much, but maybe worth accepting this and making sure of getting those clashes out the way early on? Giving the relevant captains fair warning for scaring up reserves/placating annoyed players of course.

[Mick Norris]

I don't think amusing me is a core objective

Well yes, the drawback of the 2 APA idea, is that you are fixing the matchup between 2 of the 3 Manticores teams and 2 of the 3 Bradford teams - the benefit would be splitting into separate pools the 2 SoA teams and the 2 Cheddleton teams

However, with 16 teams, 11 of which you have to play, I'd hope our 3rd team could avoid having to play either of our other 2 teams - I accept if both the 1st and 2nd are challenging then they legitimately might have to play each other (same with Bradford A&B, but again no need for either of them to play Bradford C)

[Mick Norris]

What I'd like to avoid is travelling for a weekend where the Saturday is a match against 3Cs, and the Sunday a match against another Manticore team