So I've been meaning to put my hand up again to run Northern Regionals. I'm assuming nobody will complain ;)
What this means at this stage is booking some fields - so check out the new poll function on the right there.
But I also wouldn't mind fostering a bit of thinking beforehand about what the Northern Region wants out of this event (Northern Region being North Queensland, South Queensland and the Northern Territory, plus folk from Northern NSW (Byron, Armidale) who have the option of qualifying for Nationals via either Northern Regionals or Eastern Regionals.
Officially, Northern Regionals, like the other Regionals events, is required by the national body to enable the qualification of teams (and players) to attend Nationals. In practice, the Northern Region produces two teams that get to go to Nationals, and for players, if you played on one of those teams at Regionals, you must play with them at Nationals. If you played with some other team at Regionals, you can play with any team that will have you at Nationals.
For our region though, we've generally been able to organise ourselves to ensure we have the two teams to fill the two slots (in both Open and Women's). Hence, Northern Regionals has been about having an event to satisfy AFDA - and of course, its good for us to have an Open/Women's event on the calendar in Brisbane [note assumption that Northern Regionals will be in Brisbane for the foreseeable future].
Assuming that we're going to continue this way in 2008, I figure we should ask ourselves if there's a better way to do it than in 2007.
In 2007, the Open Division featured five regoed teams, which became four at the start of day 1. Two of the teams intended to go to Nationals and featured most of the stronger players in the region. The third was a small number of stronger players who weren't going to Nats, and the fourth was a fairly weak pickup team.
The event did its job in generating two teams for Nationals, but it was pretty lop-sided. I can't help thinking that perhaps we couldn't do it differently, although I guess at least the Nats-bound teams benefited from two days running around together, even if against some weaker opposition.
Perhaps we could make the event more of a hard-training and/or even selection event? Players register as individuals, indicating whether they also want to go to Nationals (but certainly lots of not-Nats players welcome, as its our ONLY Open tournament of the year). The Brains-Trust pick teams with an eye to generating two teams for Nationals (whether thats A/B or X/Y or something else is up to them) but also to making sure we have a good hard tournament (ie with reasonably even teams where possible). If there are more players wanting to go to Nats than there is space on two teams, then the event also becomes a selection event.
This may be an event that's inviting particularly to newer players, for example from the Universities (including now Gold Coast Griffith). And it should ideally also link to BPL, with BPL teams 'scouting' for players at this event.
I think this is what Sultry did with their one day of Regionals, and in addition they were very open to new players (I suspect for an Open tournament people wouldn't be keen for rank-beginners).
Anyway, enough rave. What do YOU think?
8 comments:
What happens if an Open club (ie. THOR or Firestorm) decides themself to put in 2 teams to attempt to qualify to Nationals (be it A/B split or X/Y)? Is it up to the frisbee community to tell these clubs that they can't build their clubs and strenght?
[first comment above deleted due to technical difficulties!]
Nah, I don't think you get me WN - probably because I ramble a bit!
I'm just saying that it'd be good if people started talking about what they want to do early, and we can make the event suit what people want (rather than the other way around).
If there are three teams worth of people who want to go to Nats, then Regionals needs to be about determining which are the best two that get to go.
But if like the last two years, there's two teams worth of people wanting to fill two slots, then we might as well tweak Regionals to fulfil some other goals (like having a tournament that's attractive for non-Nats players to be part of). If this is the case, then there's various options (like the probably-overly-ambitious hat-ish-training-selection one I vaguely outlined above).
As a seemingly likely scenario - so if Firestorm get organised early and get 40 players involved, and Thor or Dojo or UQ or whoever aren't interested, then rather than having a Regionals involving two well-drilled Firestorm teams and a couple of disorganised-rabble-pickup-teams, I'd want to see if we can have a better event (that still enables us to tell AFDA that Firestorm A and Firestorm B are coming to Nats).
Anyways, it'd be useful to have this worked out a few months ahead, rather than with a couple of weeks to spare.
I should also note my self interest - at this stage I hope to go to Nats again in 2008, presumably with some sort of Northern B team (as with Thor or '74 Flood) - assuming they'll have me, but that's another matter!
JdR,
Interesting concept.
I agree with the notion that it'd be good to see Northern Regionals as a reasonable-quality tournament for all teams involved, as there is unlikely to be significant competition for Nats qualification for a number of years...
From the perspective of someone aiming to be part of a competitive club at Nationals, Regionals is too late for selections. Regardless of any other opinion I have on the idea, I think less than 6 weeks before Nats is not nearly enough time to be picking your teams.
I don't really have any answers right now, but will have a think.
John
Its feasible to convince AFDA to allow bringing Northern Regionals forward by 2-4 weeks if you wanted to get the selection/development benefit.
Flowing from there - if Northerns is easly, then a team from Brisbane could go and play (as a non-qualifier) in the Eastern or Southern Regionals tournament. This is basically to get a good run against some solid teams.
Alternatively, I've also been trying to prod some Sydney or Melbourne folk to run an Open/Women's tournament about halfway between Regionals and Nationals, as a high-end pre-Nats hit out for qualified teams to get a run against other qualified teams. But silence so far.
If we could get clubs like Fak, Chilly and HoS to commit to coming to such a hit-out, then we'd probably have Northerns early anyways, to give us a chance to catch our administrative breath.
A few typoes above - I mean if teams would commit to coming to a pre-Nats hit-out in Brisbane, then we've probably ask to move Regionals forward a few weeks.
i dont really think you can do much with the format of regionals. plus it is good to have a serious tournament every now and then.
That said Fight the Phat 08' one fat lady. date to be confirmed.
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