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We've seen how Sim players can score 4 goals, but there is an even more
powerful figure in Sim Football - the Coach. On a good day he can score you 5 goals, on a bad day he's worthless.
The Coach system has 3 main aspects - the Coach Draft, the purchase cost, and the scoring range.
Rule 5A - The pre-season Coach Draft is held in conjunction with the Initial or Priority Draft processes and consists of 3 rounds. In the first week clubs may nominate one of the sixteen AFL coaches at a set price. If a coach is nominated by only one club, that club signs the coach at the set price. If a coach is nominated by 2 or more clubs, he deemed to be In Dispute and may be bid upon by the clubs in dispute. The minimum bid is the set price + $1 and the highest bid wins. Coaches are signed to a one-year contract. Rule 5B - The set price of a coach is determined by the number of wins his AFL club had in the previous season. Number of wins x $10,000 = set price of Coach. A draw is regarded as half a win. Wins from the previous season include finals. The bidding system for disputed Coaches is exactly the same as for PIDs in the Initial Drafts, or when 2 or more clubs try to buy a Free Agent in the same round. Coaches are only signed to one-year contracts and negotiate with all clubs at the start of each season. It boils down to the fact that the coach with the best recent record has the highest set price. As an example, in 2000 Essendon won 21 home & away games + 3 finals for a total of 24. The set price for Sheedy in the 2001 Coach Draft would have been 24 x $10,000 = $240,000. On the other hand you could have gone for Blight, a steal at just $25,000 after St Kilda had 2 wins and a draw in 2000. Of course in both those cases, you might not have been the only owner nominating them. We know that you sign the coach if you win the bid in the case of a dispute, but what if you lose? Rule 5C - In the second and third weeks of the Coach Draft, owners may elect to Bid on a coach they are In Dispute over OR nominate a different, unsigned coach BUT NOT BOTH. The selection process for the right coach is a traumatic time at AFL level, so why should Sim be different? There are many decisions to be made in what looks like the relatively simple process of selecting a Coach. Do you go for the costly high achievers of the previous year, and will other owners also nominate them? Do you trust your instinct and go for a low-profile coach whose team you think is on the way up? Do you want the coach of your AFL side, in the eternal optimism that this is "the year"? And if you are In Dispute, do you make a deal and maybe have a pick at the rest in the 2nd week, or do you take the risk of a bidding war, knowing that if you lose you won't get another pick until the 3rd week? Testing times. Rule 5D - A Coach is identified with the AFL club he is coaching at the commencement of each season. A Coach cannot be traded, but can be replaced by the purchase of another available Coach at the set price using the Coach order. The Coach order can only be used between rounds 1 to 15 inclusive. A club cannot employ more than one Coach at any time. Once you have signed a Coach you are effectively tied to that AFL club while you have that Coach. Even if the AFL club sacked the coach during the season, you would simply take on his replacement. However you can change Coaches during the season by signing an available coach at his set price. By signing a new Coach, you are automatically sacking the old Coach, and you get no compensation because his contract ensured he would be paid in full in the event of a sacking. A new Coach takes up the job in the round following that in which he was signed, in exactly the same way as a player can take the field the week after he is signed. The current Coach is still employed in the round in which the new Coach is signed. But when you've is finally settled on your Coach, you can sit back and watch him rake in the goals. Rule 5E - A Sim Coach scores goals relative to the performance of his AFL counterpart's team in the corresponding round. If the AFL coach wins his match by 1 to 14 points, the Sim Coach scores 1 goal, 15-29 points 2 goals, 30-44 points 3 goals, 45-59 points 4 goals and 60+ points 5 goals. If the AFL coach loses or draws his match, the Sim Coach scores nothing. This is the true judge of an AFL coach's worth - wins on the board. Anything less than a win is unacceptable, and so it is in Sim, where a losing AFL coach scores nothing for his Sim team. As you can see there are 1 to 5 goals on offer for various winning margins, with a 10-goal shellacking gaining the maximum reward of 5 goals. The Coach system SIMulates all the aspects of the AFL coach - the market forces that demand the best pay for the best coach, the drama and agonizing decision-making involved in selecting the coach, and the effect a coach can have on the performance of the team. The final factor in deciding the winner of a Sim match is the Home Ground Advantage (HGA). Rule 5F - During the 18 home-and-away rounds, the home side receives a 2 goal Home Ground Advantage. That's pretty plain. If you are playing at your home ground - which you do 50% of the time - you get a 2 goal start. There is no HGA in the finals, as they are always played on neutral grounds. History has shown that about 10% of match results are affected by the HGA, adding a small but intriguing element of uncertainty to the game. So, we add up the goals & behinds scored by the players (including fines), the coach goals and the HGA goals, and we arrive at the final score for each team. And, of course, the team with the highest score wins the game. It is all brought together on the Matchsheet for each game. |
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