> Super peer pool gives one team a shot at the top 4 realistically, There's a 4v5 and a 3v6 match, which I'd say are two realistic shots at the top 4. I think only one of these games went against seed this season.
> and gives too much protection to the 4th seeded team who now aren't as > different in > quality to the 5th seed in comparison to last year. The winner of the 5-8 group plays the loser of the 1-4 group, so the 4v5 match is the BEST from 5-8 vs the loser from 1-4, so is most likely to cause an 'upset' from the top 4. In the 1-8 peer pool structure, the 4v5 is played within the group, and it's possible that the 6th seed happens to be better than 5th (and 4th), yet 4th seed only has to play 5th seed (and 7th), so I'd say 4th is actually more 'protected' in 1-8 standard peer pools, and much more up for grabs in super peer pools. > You can't prepare to improve by only playing teams the same standard as you. Isn't the whole of the Open Tour worked out so that teams have as many tight, close fought, competitive games as possible? I'm not saying you can't learn by playing a team you have no real chance of beating, but I think you learn more by playing closely matched games, and by taking the time to watch Iceni play from the sideline, or on one of the many DVDs available. Is it fair to ask all ~15 players on a top seeded team to play a game in which they learn nothing, and perhaps even get into bad habits, when you haven't tried spending £4 to watch Iceni beat Leeds in '07, or Bliss in '06, to see if you can learn similar things to what you'd learn by playing against them? > For teams playing 5-8, they don't have to go to the States, there is > aspirational > quality teams in the bracket above them, and we want a shot. In every super peer pool format, if you finish 1st or 2nd in the pool of 5-8, then you get your shot against 4th or 3rd respectively... so if you earn your shot, you get your shot. > My gut feeling is that 2/3 of tours being super peer pools is too much,... > like to hear from Leeds or Bristol on the matter Perhaps it is too much - it's impossible to please everybody, so when changes like moving to super-peer-pools have gone through, it's only after communicating via email with the majority of the women's Tour teams, explaining what the format would mean, getting opinions, votes, alternative suggestions, etc. Not everybody is on email / BD, so maybe the best solution would be to set up a new group with 1 contact per team and have a vote on stuff like this, assuming we want the Women's Tour to be majority rule. In the Open Tour, Tour 0 really serves two purposes - seeding T1 so it can start competitively, and giving the lower teams a shot at the higher ones (though they still don't get to play the top 4). Perhaps one or two walkover-style games at the start of the women's season isn't too much to ask from the top Women's teams, but perhaps it is when there wouldn't be much other point (no real seeding necessity) to W Tour 0 - so I'm interested to hear from the rest of them also. Felix ps. this email comes from being part of the scheduling group, the competitions committee, the women's board as uni women's coordinator, and being the producer & seller of ultimate DVDs, but nobody in any of those groups necessarily agrees with what I've said, except the DVD sales of course which say barely any UK women ulti players buy DVDs (I sell more to the german ladies!) __________________________________________________ BritDisc mailing list [email protected] http://www.fysh.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/britdisc Staying informed - http://www.ukultimate.com/staying-informed
