Re: The Structure of the English Competition

The Green Phantom <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Ian Diddams wrote:
> 
> [...]
> 
> It strikes me Didds that you are determined to ignore the knock on effect of
> a pyramid structure. 

Not at all.  I just don;t agree that we have this enormous pyramid of
600,000 players in england all of which contribute through pressure
for places etc which  creates the england team at the top.  That is
clearly not the case.

> Picking and choosing the levels where you think it
> can be said to take effect is disingenuous to say the least.

I'll accept the levels I outlined arenm't "set in stone".  Maybe the
pyramid base is lower, maybe its higher.  Somebody suggested the real
base of National 3 - and i don't think that's necessarily wrong, but
I'd add a caveat that players will feed into these clubs from their
own feeder clubs in lower divsions - but as one offs rather than the
norm.  Whereber the ceiling/floor is it certainly isn't at Dorset and
Wilts Two (South)


> You can take any level you like and it will contain at least one or two
> players who want to take it further.  At the lowest levels there will be
> someone with a turn of speed who feels that he should get into the first
> team and makes his effort to get there - thereby displacing someone less
> ambitious. 

Agreed.  But you've answered your own question, so to speak.  That's
within a single club.  Unconnected to anything else.  That creates
competition within a club - but affects nobody outside it [caveat of
providing a more difficult game for an opponent thereby strengthening
the opponents experience and stretching his abilities etc].


> In the first team there are players who think that the team in
> the next town is pretty cool and furthermore they are close to the top of
> the league whereas their own team is near the bottom - it's probably
> because they have better players/coach/sponsors/etc so he will make an
> attempt to get into their team.

Will he?  is that truly your own experience (it could well be).  In my
own experience my "main" club plays in level 7, Southern Counties
(South).  In all my time there I have known only one player move clubs
"for the better standard"...  and then he didn't move to the level 6
club in the next town but to a level 4 club an hour away - and gave it
up after two seasons for various reasons not the least being his
experience was despite the difference in standards the net result was
muchly similar for himself...  he basically didn't feel the step up
actually improved anything for him personally ( I must quiz him
further on this point!).

> This applies to coaches and clubmen also.  They form their committees and
> sponsor and support their club and when they spot a good prospect (playing,
> coaching or whatever) they will try and get that prospect to consider
> joining them.

Yes - of course.  Which means when they find a stand out player they
grab him and get him to sign up before anybody from a higher and more
pertinent club does!  That doesn't create pressure within a pyramid -
that stuiflles pressure in a pyramid!   You'd be amazed (?) at how
many people I've met who got told the paper they were signing was just
a club joining form, to find it was actually the RFU registration form
which makes it difficult to move clubs with ease!

> After all this is how teams rise and fall in leagues and win promotion or
> get demoted.

Ye.e.e.e.....s   Although Southern Counties (South) is a perfect
example of the other side of promotion/relegation...  for several
years my club struggled to get promoted with stronger clubs in the
same league ...  eventually over time they all managed to get promoted
(5 years)...  in between getting relegated back again.  Only one of
them has now made the "permanent" step up ...  one is wobbling.  All
the others go up for a season...  and then come back down again.  We
see the same at the other end of the league...  teams come up, and go
straight back down again.  Then come stright back up again.

All this yo-yo-ing isn't really an indication that the cream is rising
through the leagues at all.  What it really indicates is that on the
whole the vast majority of clubs exist at a certain level for the
duration of a generation of players at least.  In that period if they
are on the cusp of their league's strengths then they will yo yo... 
too good for one league, not good enough for another.  No wholesale
player changes occur genrally to drive clubs one way or another... 
natural lifetime progression has a far greater effect.  A club has a
siesmic shift from one league to another only when its players retire
and the new set that take over are - as a team - better or worse.  Not
because of an sliding improvement.  You see it all over the country 
(well, in Wiltshire and North-West London in my experiences ;-).

Yes - you do get clubs the are exceptions to that rule - my "second"
club near Watford is proof of that, having had successes over the past
four seasons and so far this year doing very well.  But as a young
club (8 years old?) I feel that probably says more about them not
having found their true level yet before they too start the yo-yo
pattern!

> It doesn't take away from what CW and his team have achieved either, in
> fact, in my view, it reinforces my argument.  The cream has been forced to
> the top.


Forced?  No...  I don't buy that.  Risen ...  maybe.  If Leonard had
been content plying his trade at Barking and staying with his mates he
wouldn't be playing for England with 113 caps to his name.  He only
acheived that because he was hungry enough to go and find a club at
which he could perform at a higher level - did harlequins scout in
Essex and find him, or did he apply to Quins to play?

In short, the "cream" is at the top because on the whole it has chosen
to be there.  The system does _not_ get good players to the top just
be dint of them being good players.  There will be no more Wade
Dooleys.

Compare the above to (say) the traditional NPC system.  Clubs had/have
a hierarchy as explained above as exists in England also.  So a club's
better players get selected for the 1st team...  which are seen by the
provinvial selectors, and selected for province ...  they don;t ask
anyone, they don;t apply to play....  they get approached by the next
level.  AB selectors then repeat the process watching the NPC players.
 Thus test players genuinely rise to the top.  Yes - they must still
"want" to do it agreed...  someone that wants to stay in the 2nd XV
with his mates won;t rise, nor will anybody that tunrs down the
representative opportunities.  But on the whole players rise through
the pyramid because the pyramid actively drwas from levels below it.

Compare that to the English pyramid.  Yes - I accept the pyramid DOES
exist.  And yes, players rise through it, albeit for differing
reasons.  But it is not a pyramid that FORCES players anywhere - the
NZ pyramid doesn't acheive that either, although maybe it "squeezes"
players there ;-)

The above is diverging a little anyway.  The main point is this
pyramid and where its effective base is.  maybe its level 4.  maybe
level 5.  But even allowing for the little trickles, I just cannot
accept that level 12 players are genuinely contributing to some
symbiotic being that is sqeezing the best players into the ZP and thus
national squads.  If you removed levels 6 and below I seriously doubt
it would affect the England team whatsoever.  THAT's why I decry the
numbers game.

didds