Season 8 Homepage I

2014/2015 – London Wasps

2013/2014 – London Wasps
2012/2013 – Leicester Tigers 
2011/2012 – Newcastle Falcons 
2010/2011 - Newcastle Falcons 
2009/2010 – Saracens 
2008/2009 - London Irish

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POS		Aviva Premiership	PLAYED	WON	DREW	LOST	P F	P A	P D	T F	T A	TBP	LBP	POINTS
1		London Wasps *	22	18	1	3	626	564	62	69	49	8	2	83
2		Sale Sharks *	22	18	0	4	616	546	70	68	49	7	4	82
3		Northampton Saints	22	16	0	6	606	553	53	62	51	8	6	78
4		Harlequins *	22	12	2	8	605	564	41	60	54	3	8	62
5		Leicester Tigers	22	11	2	9	551	541	10	47	47	0	9	57
6		Bath Rugby *	22	10	1	11	572	579	-7	57	55	3	11	51
7		Gloucester *	22	9	1	12	582	577	5	58	53	3	12	51
8		Newcastle Falcons *	22	9	1	12	553	579	-26	52	53	3	10	50
9		Saracens *	22	9	2	11	546	578	-32	47	53	1	10	50
10		Exeter Chiefs *	22	7	4	11	538	568	-30	46	54	0	11	46
11		London Welsh	22	4	0	18	513	601	-88	45	61	0	12	28
12		London Irish *	22	2	2	18	531	601	-70	43	64	1	16	27

Senior Squads wrote:
The maximum squad size is 40 senior players.  If a team has more than 40 players in their squad then they will be fined £1 million per player over the permitted amounts per day for the first seven days. If after 7 consecutive days a team still has more than the permitted number of players then the team will be fined £2 million per player per day, and fined 1 league point per player per day for the next seven days. If after this time a team still has more than the permitted number of players in their squad, the RFU (SJE) will remove players at its discretion to bring them back under the permitted numbers. There will be no right of appeal to players being removed.

Be aware that all tier one international matches which are played during the season will count in the game, and players selected in the match day 23's for those matches will not be eligible to play for their clubs on that weekend, therefore you must give due consideration to the make-up of your squad.

Academy Rules wrote:
Each team will be allowed to have an academy squad of 23 players.  Players who are in the academy must be born on or after 1st September 1993. 

Any player, who is at any Premiership club in real life, either in their senior, academy or AASE squads, can be bid for on the domestic bidding page. Players who are at your own club in real life and are coming through the academy system must be bid for if you want them in your own academy.

Transfers wrote:

• Domestic (other AP Teams)
  Each team has a budget to use in the purchase of players. Domestic transfers between AP clubs, regardless of nationality of player, should be negotiated between the respective managers, and then confirmed on the Domestic Transfer Confirmation Page.
  
• Domestic (Championship and below)
  Each team may during the season purchase no more than 5 players from the Championship or the National Leagues. Worcester Warriors & London Wasps will receive two additional bids to be used exclusively on academy age players. These players must be bid for on the National League Bidding page, and each bid will be considered by the RFU on its own merits before being accepted or rejected.  No bid will be accepted until a minimum of 24 hours has elapsed from the time the bid was made, in order to afford other managers the opportunity to make a counter bid.
  
• Foreign
  To make a foreign transfer (i.e. from any club outside of the AP, regardless of whether the player is English) a bid should be made on the Foreign Transfers Page, which will be considered by the RFU against the posted guidelines for purchase prices before being accepted or rejected. No bid will be accepted until a minimum of 24 hours has elapsed from the time the bid was made, in order to afford other managers the opportunity to make a counter bid.
  
  There will be a summer foreign transfer window, which will run as follows.
  Player Draft
  Worcester Warriors & London Wasps will participate in a player draft beginning the week of June 22nd. Both sides will be allowed to draft two players each. The draft picks will go as follows; 1. Worcester 2. Wasps 3. Wasps 4. Worcester.
  
  Round Bidding
  There will be two rounds of bidding. The first window will run the week starting June 29th and the second the week starting July 3rd. All sides will be allowed to sign one player each during the window. These bids are not protected if you do not have the funds in place to bid during the window you will lose the bid.     
  
  Open Bidding
  From July 13th the foreign market will be open to all bids similar to previous seasons. Due to the world cup the window will remain open till the end of September. 
  

Player Releases wrote:
Managers may choose to release players from their clubs, for which they will be offered compensation

Compensation will be paid as follows

£2 million – current international (must have played international rugby in the previous 12 months)
£1.5 million – former international
£1m – top flight experience
£0.5m – other

All released players will be deemed to have joined a Championship side and can be bid for on the National League Bidding page.

Retirements wrote:
There will be no compensation for retiring players.  Should a player who retires decide to come out of retirement and play again, then he will automatically go back to the club who he was playing for in the game when he retired.

Fixtures wrote:
There will be 22 Aviva Premiership games per season, plus the play offs. There will also be European Rugby Champions Cup, European Rugby Challenge Cup and Anglo Welsh Cup matches.  These games will take place once a week. A match thread will be put up every Monday. Home teams must be named by midnight on Tuesday. Away teams must be named by midnight on Wednesday. Failure to meet these deadlines is punishable by the addition of three match points to the oppositions final score, unless both sides fail to do so. Both teams must provide tactics by midnight on Thursday. Predictions will be open from 00:01 hours on Friday and remain open until 20:00 hours on Sunday. Managers will pm the scores that they think will happen from these games (apart from games in which they are involved).  An average of all predictions will be taken, and then 0.5 points added to each teams score for each prediction that had them as the winner, and that will then be the final score.

Managers are asked to provide detail as to why they have predicted a result.  To be considered a descriptive prediction this must be a full 3 lines long when entered into the text box. 

Teams wrote:
When naming your team, not only should you put the starting XV and replacements, but also tactics that your team will employ. Results will be affected by the tactics described.

In addition, each team must have the following:-

For domestic competition at least 8 England qualified players in your match day 23, and at least 4 of those must be in your starting XV.

For European competition at least 8 England qualified players in your match day 23, and at least 6 of those must be in your starting XV.

At least 2 props and 1 hooker on the bench.

All players must be eligible (not injured or banned).

Failure to comply with these rules will result in a 1 league point deduction.

If you fail to submit a team for a match, then the other team will be automatically awarded a 30-0 bonus point win. If both teams fail to submit a team, then it will be scored as a 0-0 draw.

Injuries and Suspensions wrote:
Injuries in this game do NOT reflect real life, they will be generated by me.

Players banned in real life will be ineligible for selection in this game for the duration of the ban.

Inclusion of injured/banned players will result in them being replaced by players on the bench, and the bench not having eight players, which may result in punishment if it concerns the front-row.

Punishment for fielding an ineligible player will be loss of one match point.

Financial Rewards wrote:
There will be no rewards for the result of an individual match, instead the managers will receive cash for predicting.

£2m for descriptive predictions 
£0.25m for scores on the doors predictions
Bonuses will be awarded on a scaled basis i.e. 2m for 5 games, 1.6m for 4 games and so on
If you fail to predict without first advising me that you are unable to do so that week, you will be fined £1m for a first offence, £2m for a second offence, £3m for a third offence etc upto a maximum of £5m per fine.

AP finishing positions.

Champions: 8m
Runners Up: 6m
Playoff Semi Finalist Losers: 5m
5th: 4m
6th: 3.5m
7th: 3m
8th: 2.5m
9th: 2m
10th: 1.5m
11th: 1m
12th: 0.5m

Heineken Cup

Losing Quarter Finalists - £2 million each
Losing Semi Finalists - £3 million each
Runners Up - £4 million
Champions - £5 million

Amlin Challenge Cup

Losing Quarter Finalists - £1 million each
Losing Semi Finalists - £2 million each
Runners Up - £3 million
Champions - £4 million

Anglo-Welsh Cup

Losing Semi Finalist - £1 million each
Runners Up - £2 million
Champions - £3 million


If your budgets falls below minus £10 million for any reason, the administrators (SJE) will step in and players from within your squad will be released for the relevant financial compensation (foreign transfer value) in order to bring your budget back above minus £10 million.

dammit_chris wrote:From the Times:

Chris Ashton and Marland Yarde will be cut from England’s World Cup plans today after being overtaken in the pecking order by Semesa Rokoduguni, the Bath wing who was drafted into the training squad only as a late replacement for David Strettle.

Nick Easter, Matt Kvesic, George Kruis, Matt Mullan, Lee Dickson and Kyle Eastmond are also in line to be jettisoned by Stuart Lancaster, the head coach, six weeks before England play Fiji in the opening game

dammit_chris wrote:Eastmond has been exceptional for Bath this season, but you can't play him at international level between Ford and Joseph, just lacks the physicality and there seems to be so much emphasis on that from Lancaster. That can be the only reason Burgess is being kept on as you can't really get more physicality than him.

Get the impression that Francis could be getting wrapped up in cotton wool Mat, Gatland heaped praise on him earlier in the week and with Lee's injury they are very thread bare in terms of THs (probably my first contribution ever to a discussion on THs...).

prop_lyd wrote:Corbs can play th?? When was the last time he played there?!

Worried about tomorrow, really think we will lose with the Irish squad out

anonmattyt wrote:Most press said rokadungi was being kept but Mays supreme end of season form and brilliance in england camp has seen him kill it.

dammit_chris wrote:Jonny May was doing things like this week after week at the end of the season.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZuFQt35I-E

He was producing some of the best performances I've seen in the AP from a winger. Getting dropped by England really caused him to up his game, similar to Vunipola.

Roko was also exceptional at the end of the year as well, some of the tries and runs he was scoring were great to watch. But can see why May was selected ahead of him, Ashton and Yarde.

Interesting when you talk to guys from SH as a lot can't work out why Ashton isn't involved due to his support play and running lines.