Pro Tour Team Captains #2

[Robbo]

Originally posted by IanC
Playing the best teams we can is the biggest incentive that any tourney series could offer us! The same format as the big leagues may be nice, but to be honest, for young teams like us the need t.....

.......From there we stand a chance of talking about prizes but that is a long way off, we must first be serious contenders to win a title before worrying about the paycheck!

Ian, I will take your word as wanting to bash heads with the best teams being the main reason for you guys wanting to play in any particular league but unfortunately there isn't that same incentive for some of the top teams.

Some more able teams like to bash up less able teams and this is one of the main reasons they play, they like being big fish in small ponds but the reality is, if you are a serious pro team then playing in a league of this ilk can only be damaging.

I think the top teams however do have a responsibility tho and that responsibility should perhaps manifest itself in terms of education rather than just playing against them.

You can learn ten times as much with an organized structured seminar as against being on the receiving end of a one minute bashing and yet we see some so called good teams just queuing up to hand out these tharashings..and for what?
Monday morning bragging rights ?

If we really want to progress then we need to think outside the 'just playing' box and refocus on areas of structured and coherent education.

We all love to play, it's the reason we do play but if we wanna improve then just playing against the top teams ain't the answer I'm afraid mate.

 

[martin]

can not stay out of it longer

Ian i see what you are trying to do its the same thing we done 2 years ago.
But i think you would be better off just training mate. It makes much more sense to arrange a scrimmage with a team rather than playing a event. One is's cheaper and the second is you get more game time.
As for being in line for a bashing, mate don't kid yourself if that did happen it would tear your team apart. like i say i can see why you are upset and want it to continue but i doubt in the long run it would be good for your team or others involved.

 

[IanC]

Robbo,

I understand what you are saying about seminars, assisted training etc. but what we (HPG) also need is more experience with better competition.

What we found last year was all the work we did helped our game, playing the UK events helped us gel as a team, but we were not prepared for the extra intensity of playing the top div 1 and pro teams we met in the MS events, as we had got sloppy.

The pro-tour looked like a good option to experience some more intense ball, but in the absense of that do we just train and play the big events?

That would be the ideal for a really serious team but I'm not sure the younger players could hack that much work for such infrequent play? Or is that the first step from where we are towards where the likes of the Kellys and Just manchester etc. are?

Cheers

Ian

 

[IanC]

can not stay out of it longer

Originally posted by martin
Ian i see what you are trying to do its the same thing we done 2 years ago.
But i think you would be better off just training mate. It makes much more sense to arrange a scrimmage with a team rather than playing a event. One is's cheaper and the second is you get more game time.
As for being in line for a bashing, mate don't kid yourself if that did happen it would tear your team apart. like i say i can see why you are upset and want it to continue but i doubt in the long run it would be good for your team or others involved.

missed this one due to my slow typing!

guess It may be time for a rather serious think about what we want.

Ian

 

[Matski]

Originally posted by IanC


Yes, for the first few events we will probably be beaten $hitless, but we will learn from this! Winning game after game teaches us nothing, and our game dropped towards the end of last year, rather than improved! We could grow more from a few games with the likes of the kellys, nexus, shock, phoenix etc. than we could from a whole season bashing up teams who still mostly play for a giggle!

Prizes, nice idea, free entry into MS events....sure.....but it ain't happening 'cos that will cost the industry money, the best we can hope for is to get enough good teams into the bigger circuit that UK ball becomes interesting from a marketing point of view.

From there we stand a chance of talking about prizes but that is a long way off, we must first be serious contenders to win a title before worrying about the paycheck!

Unfortunately mate, domestic series results really are worthless to the industry....in terms of what would lead to serious rewards for teams anyway. There's just not enough teams that get coverage within the UK, so for any domestic league to be 'legitimised' in anyway, would really need a strong link to an MLT.....
However, this still would not ensure anything as domestic league organisers retain their autonomy to protect the bottomline. This kills the hopes of any real dialogue with mainstream league creating or maintaining a major domestic series - there's always going to be a conflict of interest.
The issue is how significant the results are within the wider context, with organisers only looking at the short-term the answer is domestic league results over here mean FA and will do indefinately.

If teams want free entrance and the rest they need to have a good enterprise and play where it counts. There's no fooling the head honcho's and unless the results are directly generalisable to the 'real deal' series (which they sure as hell aint) - they don't wanna know. And i'm not conjecturing.

Teams can get more backing if they get talked about, and the best way to do that is to mix it regularly with the few main teams we have....the education thing Pete was talking about.

 

[Steve Hancock]

Originally posted by IanC
Playing the best teams we can is the biggest incentive that any tourney series could offer us! The same format as the big leagues may be nice, but to be honest, for young teams like us the need to battle it out with the best teams we can is the driving factor.

Yes, for the first few events we will probably be beaten $hitless, but we will learn from this! Winning game after game teaches us nothing, and our game dropped towards the end of last year, rather than improved! We could grow more from a few games with the likes of the kellys, nexus, shock, phoenix etc. than we could from a whole season bashing up teams who still mostly play for a giggle!

Prizes, nice idea, free entry into MS events....sure.....but it ain't happening 'cos that will cost the industry money, the best we can hope for is to get enough good teams into the bigger circuit that UK ball becomes interesting from a marketing point of view.

From there we stand a chance of talking about prizes but that is a long way off, we must first be serious contenders to win a title before worrying about the paycheck!

No offense, but i was talking about attracting the top teams, not potentially up and coming teams like yours. As Robbo said a domestic league won't offer much by way of high level competition for them, unless all the top teams are playing it. And i was talking about attracting them, which would imply they weren't playing it. Of course once they were all playing it, that incentive would be there, as i mentioned later in my post. But in the begining you need to offer them something worthwhile to get them on board. And my inpression is that the Major leagues are what they value, so offer them something that helps them there. Format experience and funding.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by IanC
Robbo,

I understand what you are saying about seminars, assisted training etc. but what we (HPG) also need is more experience with better competition.

What we found last year was all the work we did helped our game, playing the UK events helped us gel as a team, but we were not prepared for the extra intensity of playing the top div 1 and pro teams we met in the MS events, as we had got sloppy.

The pro-tour looked like a good option to experience some more intense ball, but in the absense of that do we just train and play the big events?

That would be the ideal for a really serious team but I'm not sure the younger players could hack that much work for such infrequent play? Or is that the first step from where we are towards where the likes of the Kellys and Just manchester etc. are?

Cheers

Ian

If you want to seriously improve and I mean seriously, you need to change your mindset, I would say 90% of the teams in the UK have to do just that.
You can make serious inroads to an improved level of play by drilling and just playing majors, we did it and proved you can in 2003, the Russians do it now as the best example.
For teams at a certain level, the pro tour is probably a good thing but it must be remembered that whilst the lesser teams in that league may well learn something from the more able teams,. the higher bracketed teams will learn less.
Even so, most of the teams will still want to play it and this is indicative of the wrong mindset if serious improvement is what we want.
Teams like the Jags, Tigers and Method show real ambition, they show dedication, they may not be the best teams around but they are going places unlike others who talk the talk and never improve.

Our direction in this sport is wholly determined by what we want out of it, if we just wanna play and have fun, cool - no problemo, go for it but don't expect too much in the way of improvement.

However, if we wanna take this sport seriously, then it's all about drilling and practice and playing majors and then some more drilling and practice and if u ain't in that environment but want it, then leave that team and go get it elsewhere ...not easy i know but I'm a firm believer in that if you want something enough, and are prepared to work at it, then it will happen.
We all have ambitions Ian, just different kinds, that's all.

 

[Oli HPG]

Originally posted by IanC


What we found last year was all the work we did helped our game, playing the UK events helped us gel as a team, but we were not prepared for the extra intensity of playing the top div 1 and pro teams we met in the MS events, as we had got sloppy.

I am not sure if I would agree completly. We had to suffer the loss of two players during the season and we still managed to play some decent ball.

The ProTour was a good idea to have teams play at the highest domestic level.

In my opinion UK paintball lacks everything. Support, commitment, ideas and most important a feel of unity and identity.

Sick and tired of the rumours, politics and the jealousy amongst players.

Just have a look at the line up for Marseille this month. How many UK teams are there?! Hardly any.

I will try to push my teams forward and see where we get.

 

[Robbo]

Originally posted by Bagpuss
In my opinion UK paintball lacks everything. Support, commitment, ideas and most important a feel of unity and identity.

..we are not short of ideas, the blueprint for improvement has been put up here enough times, what we are short of is the a number of people who are seriosu enough both at site level and at team level.

Sick and tired of the rumours, politics and the jealousy amongst players.

Politics actually plays a minority role in our lethargy but petty-mindendness and jealousy reign supreme ......

 

[psycho]

ukk

Spot on!!! Couldn't have said it any better myself!!

Originally posted by Robbo
If you want to seriously improve and I mean seriously, you need to change your mindset, I would say 90% of the teams in the UK have to do just that.
You can make serious inroads to an improved level of play by drilling and just playing majors, we did it and proved you can in 2003, the Russians do it now as the best example.
For teams at a certain level, the pro tour is probably a good thing but it must be remembered that whilst the lesser teams in that league may well learn something from the more able teams,. the higher bracketed teams will learn less.
Even so, most of the teams will still want to play it and this is indicative of the wrong mindset if serious improvement is what we want.
Teams like the Jags, Tigers and Method show real ambition, they show dedication, they may not be the best teams around but they are going places unlike others who talk the talk and never improve.

Our direction in this sport is wholly determined by what we want out of it, if we just wanna play and have fun, cool - no problemo, go for it but don't expect too much in the way of improvement.

However, if we wanna take this sport seriously, then it's all about drilling and practice and playing majors and then some more drilling and practice and if u ain't in that environment but want it, then leave that team and go get it elsewhere ...not easy i know but I'm a firm believer in that if you want something enough, and are prepared to work at it, then it will happen.
We all have ambitions Ian, just different kinds, that's all.