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    Final participation request: Rule changes for the 2019/2020 season

    From the previous message that went out (below) and the discussion at the AGM last week, I've had quite a bit of interest in putting a working party together to meet a couple of times over summer to take a look at crafting a rule or two to deal with the team selection problems we had last season. I've got a few names in the hat but if you'd also like to be involved then please let me know over the next couple of days and I'll add you to the list. Then we'll pick a couple of dates. Thanks!

    Richard.


     

    During the course of the season we have run the leagues as best we can, as fairly as we can and as flexibly as we can but there were often questions about team selection and sometimes concerns that a particular team on the night wasn't exactly fair...

    Last year, at the AGM, we agreed to drop the 'order change' rule because it was too constraining and too confusing but it did serve the purpose of preventing top players from higher teams from playing in the lower teams. Without this rule, it's been difficult to keep the team selection fair and some teams have taken advantage.

    There are two problems that have come up:

    • If the A team isn't playing one week, what's to stop them playing for the B team? The 'Changing teams' rule prevents more than 2 players from the higher team playing for the lower team but there's no restriction over which players play and even two players coming down from the higher team can make a big difference to the strength of the lower team.
    • If a club has two teams, it can be beneficial to swap certain key players between those teams depending on the strength of the opposition and gain unfair advantage match by match.

    We have some thoughts on how we might adjust the rules to go some way to addressing these problems but this first message is to ask you what you think:

    • What suggestions do you have to address these problems?
    • How can you define who plays for which team? How would this work for the first few matches?
    • Do you have other suggestions for rule changes?
    • Have you seen other situations during the season that you would like us to take a look at rule changes for?

    In general, we'd rather have less rules and more flexibility but the league must be played fairly and if we need to introduce more rules to achieve that goal then we'll consider that very carefully.

    Thanks,

       Richard Bickers and Michael Lok.