It seems to me that the Blow our rule will usually affect the worse off teams. I fully agree with the principle and it should be retained. But I would propose two revisions. See appeals board for the source of this grievance!

1) It is extended to 6-0. With SET introduced after the blowout rule, there seems to be greater chance of 5-0 being reached.

2) That CPs lost should be restored at the season end. As it is usually the teams who cannot afford to lose the CPs are the ones to suffer. This may encourage serial offenders however and so only two blowouts would be allowed to be reclaimed. The onus would be on managers to claim at the season end citing the games they are claiming for. The commish would not automatically restore the CPs.

Agree -

blowout rule extended to 6 goal difference from next season.

i would have to disagree - 5 goals is plenty, changing it to 6 wouldnt resolve the problem it would still occur, maybe just less frequently. But we would still have it when 6 is reached and the team appeals saying "i tried"

the only thing we can do is have Mark independantly adjudicate, if a team DIDNT leave BETTER players on 10EL sat out AND played stall for some or all of the game AND still lost 5-0 then i would say its a good case to overturn it, otherwise, without being cruel (and its happened to me bfore!) tough!!

Everyone knows the rule there?

Blowout rule is pretty harsh IMO, heavy defeats can happen to any team.

Blowout should only punish deliberate weak teams IMO, however, that is hard to judge.

This might be controversial but I'd be happy to scrap the blowout rule altogether. I have no problem with anyone fielding weak teams and as it stands it doesn't deter Aberdeen from doing so. Some games are more important than others - what's wrong with conserving your team's energy for a crucial tie such as a cup game, or more likely in our case, a game where we have a chance of claiming three points and avoiding relegation? We're not going to waste energy in games we are never going to win.

Agree with STE.

Let Mark deteremine when and where to apply the current rule.

Clyde and Calvin were lamenting just this morning that there's even a need for the blowout rule, but as Clyde pointed out to his younger sibling, if you didn't have the blowout rule then teams would send out week teams getting beaten by 11-0 (or worse) scores. This is unfair to teams competing for promotion/relegation. For instance, if Clyde FC is in a promotion fight with team X, and team X plays Robin Dewar's team, and Robin tanks the match by blowout proportions, team X may avoid relegation. If Robin is forced to play a "somewhat" competitive lineup, perhaps team X draws or doesn't win. Further, it is unrealistic to watch a team soar to great heights while playing a top 11 lineup two of three games and then suffer a disasterous blowout every third game. Finally, (and this may be the true reason that the blowout rule was put in place in the first place) blowouts play havoc with the stats. GD is very important in some cases, but is all whacked out by the existence of blowouts. Moreover, the golden boot comptetion also gets skewed.

Keep the rule.

Phil

It's not really the rule I have a problem with but the philosophy behind it. I just sometimes feel that the blowout rule is an attempt to force everyone to pursue a similar strategy re expending resources, i.e. make a genuine attempt to win every game. I know a lot of people play the game that way, putting out lineups at around 80% strength every game, however If we all did that then 9 times out of 10 the teams with the least resources are going to be relegated. It may be "unrealistic to watch a team soar to great heights while playing a top 11 lineup two of three games and then suffer a disasterous blowout every third game" but I'd rather the game was unrealistic than be able to tell you which teams were going down before the season had started!

Jeeze, the might RossHayworth has uttered some words

How about some words in the PRESS about ABE , it's about time ROS

Anyway back to the blowout , we have all had the odd crazy result which may cause a blowout , it happens!

Like most of us ( as well as ROSS , who flogs his ABE to death) I try not To LOSE
a game deliberately. However due to EL and team SL ,sometimes you just can't compete.

I take your point Ross why break your back if there is no chance of winning.
I agree with U there , in my position I do it quite often , but I do play for a point.

Just ask DFA

The problem arises when you gift a team an EASY 3 points and a hatfull of goals
which may result inTHAT team winning the league or avoiding the drop. Not fair
on the other teams around them.

I think what we have in place at present works as long as we Have an appeals panel who can make that judgement on unfair blowouts.

Why giving it back at end of season? This may have a point offcourse. But you can't give them back in every situation. Only to the weaker teams must get them back. But how do you judge that? Which team is weaker then the other? And would it be all the same for Division one, two or three???

I don't see any way to judge it. So restoring the punishment at end of season is no option for me.

And also I don't think it's a big difference between 5-0 or 6-0, so if it's up to me it stays in the same way.

(But offcourse guys, I don't mind if you play a weak lineup against ME )

That's not fair Robin - I think you'll find we issued a press release as recently as Season 6!

Anyway having imparted my words of wisdom on the blowout rule I shall now return to a serene slumber until season 28, or at least until Ricky wins the league ...

That will be season 28 then

The idea behind the suspension is that losing CPs does penalise you over the season, but does not take actual resource from the club in the long term. I propose a limit to the amount that can be claimed back to prevent it being abused by the use of the strategy Ross suggests.

I believe the blowout rule is important becuase other managers are affected by your decision to play a very under strength side and should be maintained. My argument is that the 5-0 has been in place for a long time and may need revision after other rules have been implemented particularly the SET piece rule which adds 0.5 (roughly for any pedants) goals per game regardless of the strength of the team you put out.

James

"I believe the blowout rule is important becuase other managers are affected by your decision to play a very under strength side"

True but only minimally so. With no blowout rule then over the course of a season a few random managers will be gifted a slightly better goal difference. There's not much difference between my worst 11 and my 'just avoid a blowout' 11 and the current sanctions are not strong enough to stop me chancing my worst 11 sometimes anyway.

In 160 Div 1 games this season, I think a blowout has happened about 8 times.

That is 5% of all Div 1 matches so far this season.


This could be argued either way: -

1) it is quite high so shows incentive not there to stop weak line-ups, as ABE admits.
2) the occurance is low so why are we debating this!

Conclusion: leave blowout at 5 goal difference


A rule change should only be appropriate if there were several appeals per session and it became silly.

Blimey - only 8 blowouts? I must be responsible for about half of those!