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Actually was the 2nd Walkover from England in the tourney already (had one in the first round also).

Even though I'm kind of involved because I'm a german user, I still feel that this rule here

Ties in the standings are broken first by number of forfeits (indicated by a * next to the number of losses a team has), followed by point differential, then points scored.

should be applied and therefore England should be at the end of the teams with a 5-3 record. It's true that the rules don't specify anything in the NT-section - but they don't specify anything there.

Standings

The standings page for a given national team displays the current status of the tournament in which the national team is taking part. Round robin pools and playoff matches are displayed in reverse chronological order. The standings page displays round robin pools and playoff matches for every team in the competition.

So I guess it's just normal to assume that the usual rules also apply for the NT-level. I hope this will be corrected before the games start next monday.

While I think it would make sense to take forfeits into account, I cannot promise anything, since this the exact kind of thing that affects managers strategy so it probably shouldn't be changed mid-season. I'll consult my colleagues and see if we can find a satisfying solution, but I predict that if we agree on a change, it will probably take effect starting next season.

It´s not exactly a change in mid-season as it is in the rules already and only because of a bug not executed in all contests ...

The problem is that even though it is a wrong thing, some people may have intentionally used it by making forfeits (England U21 seems like a good example) and changing the effect what they have done now after they have done it seems like we're changing the rules mid season. I'm not sure I'm clear about it, but I hope you get the jist of it.

I'd like to note that it was a pretty well known fact amongst NT managers that walkovers didn't affect standings(or at least I knew about it, and I've heard others discuss it), so it would be a change of policy at least.

Honestly - if teams by calculating that walkovers won´t cause any harm decide to "draw the walkover" as a tactical weapon, that´s bad sportmanship in an extreme form. So coaches who try to exploit that "loophole" can hardly call for justice there and for sure don´t need to be protected.

I see the point from the BB point, but as a user I´d feel betrayed if there is a rule, the rule is for whatever reason not executed and someone jumps at that knowing about the possible consequences and afterwards that user gets protected. If the rule is there, you have to count on somebody calling it. If you count on nobody acting according to the rules "just because" that´s within your own responsibility and if it fails it was at your own risk.

About the rule beeing executed or not:

Tie breakers usualle kick in after the FINAL game of the regular season, because that´s when the seeding occurs and tie breakers are necessary. So the first time when the error occured with any true consequencs was after the last game. How can you argue that following the rules then is a change of policy, when the only thing missing so far is a? The error with the "wrong seedings" for the knock out rounds was wrong, but that´s also happening just now.That´s just a bug, not a change of policy...

Last edited by LA-seelenjaeger at 10/23/2012 4:19:57 PM

Still, I don't think it really matters if they forfeit the game intentionallor not. It's just that there is supposedly a rule
that doesn't seem to exist on NT-level. And I've been an U21-Coach and involved in the NT-business far longer (and I was fairly active in the forums) - but I never heard of this issue before. Never heard of a team not getting punished for a forfeit game.

It's kind of sad that BB will just say that it'll correct this bug "in the future" and not right now before the next games are played. If the BBs decide it's a bug, they should correct it immediately (btw: thanks for the quick reply, Marin). I rember some issue regarding NT-games that were recalculated 3 times - so it's possible to correct the mistake right away. And the argument that we're "more vocal" doesn't really count. Of course a country that was wronged is going to protest. Do you expect the english to protest that they avanced in the round-robin? Clearly not. So please be quick to decide if this is a bug (which it clearly is in my opinion) and do something about it. But even if you don't count it as a bug, please make sure to correct this in the future...

Perpete - I´d agree with you, if that was about changing the RULES. But the Rules were there. It´s about changing the application of the rules from "accidentally not" to "yes".

If you break a law, and run into a policeman who punishes you, you rarely get away with "but my friend who did the same yesterday wasn´t punished".