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id love to see the offsite forum used as a place for ALL aussie trainees to self-update their players skills there throughout the season. Its not hard, gives a common place to show how your guy is doing, ask qus, and get/give advice. And it makes u21 manager/assistants job alot easier

This season the site has been DEAD. As a motivated trainer of 3 MVP+ trainees, I think the support, primarily from that site, could be a whole lot more.

I agree
We have the off site forum which keeps it only for local coaches and all coaches should make better use of it.
It would be great if there could be a special NT/21 NT forum which is only open to local managers and that they either need ot be approved or being active for a min period of time to stop others gaining access.
Be a little easier then going to a new site to see if there are any new post.

I am thinking of running and if I do will hope to make sure we have lots of discussions on the off site forum but also on the general forum to engage all of our community.

Why I think it is great to include more and believe this is vital due to the way the system works on the person with the official job can do the most time consuming tasks. It would be great is assistants could also do some of the scouting somehow but I understand why it is set up as it is. The time required to do all this is much longer then the NT side and checking my open time during the correct time to be able to do so is the only reason I will not run. If I can not do it correctly I would not put my hand up.

This season the site has been DEAD.

Why has this happened?

I had a guy in there last season, and - ok it wasnt super busy, but prolly enough to keep me interested.

Is there perhaps too much in the way of forums and such going on? Perhaps the Wombat thread that has U21 discussion PLUS normal Aussie thread on U21 discussion PLUS the off-site forum is all just too much to follow?

Perhaps a cleaner - neater approach - off-site forum only - all queries on other forums directed to the off-site forum?

Good to see managers starting to talk but I'm not hearing many new ideas. Sure, directing all U21 NT enquiries to offsite forum is one idea; however, again...what about all the new managers coming into the game in the lower Divs who score these great Aussie talents? How are we addressing them? How are we encourgaing them to become engaged?

What system do we have in place to help them? Simple one-off posts about "You have apotential U21 NT player..." is okay but perhaps there is a better way? Perhaps we can get their interest in other ways?

Last edited by Mr J at 5/26/2013 9:51:57 AM

This is where the 21 NT coach gets some help. As Iwen has done provide a list of new draftees to keep an eye and assign them to someone to message and find out and help them with with their plans. As Iwen has I would have a person dealing with a position type for each age group to give someone the role to track and help a a group of players.

I am sure those thinking of running are working on their positions and plan to put forward once they have confirmed their intention to run.

So you are running, Mickyster? Coach? Whitewind? Whitebeard? Anyone else?

Sure the communal approach sounds swell. But when it comes down to it only the actual manager will be held accountable, so having 10 -15 managers with seperate roles is quite a precarious notion. These other managers often become inactive and the system breaks down. It has happened before and will likely happen again.The thing is all these assistants aren't bound by accountability to the team for 2 seasons so can slip away unseemingly, making the job that much harder for the elected manager to pick up the slack.

I like the idea of grabbing hold of new managers upon arrival into the game. But imo that is less of a U21 managers responsibility and more the Australian BB community. If there could be put into place a mentoring system for these newer managers who gain help from the experienced managers that could in turn like you said increase the talent pool.

I know there was a mentoring system in place on the offsite forum a fair few seasons back, and that was all well and good, I got a little advice from it, and it has produced some decent managers. To its credit it even turn ranga into a half decent manager from a zyler fan-boy spastic. But back to my point. I feel like it lacked convenience. How many new managers visit the offsite forum? Probably only the managers directed there on U21 instructions due to having lucked out with a quality starting trainee. If we are going to be fair dinkum about this then we need to target more than just the select few managers with U21 prospects. We need to reach out to a wider range on New teams. To get them on the right track. Keep them engaged. And if it be in there best interest train up some local talent.

To my next point. Mentoring New managers takes patience, and dedication to answer numerous questions no matter how frivolous they seem to an experienced manager. I have been a mentoring figure in the past. I have helped whitewind when he was starting off. I havent been able to assist him in the last couple of seasons due to SA NT commitments and the managing of my own team that is climbing through the BB ranks. Luckily he has found a good home in the wombat fed and there is plenty of people to help him in there. I also believe for someone to be correctly mentored it is best done by a single manager. Going by the principle of too many cooks spoil the broth. It is much easier for a new manager to learn the workings of the game from a single voice than grabbing bits and pieces from all over the joint.

So basically I have rambled on for a while. But basically imo for some kind of system to be set up to engage the newer managers it needs to be done on the actual site and made sustainable by not overwhelming the new manager with too many opinions or overwhelm the mentor with assigning them too many mentors. I am fine with a communal approach, but it should be separate from the U21 structure

It shouldn't be the responsibility of the U21 manager. They already have enough on their plate.

But basically imo for some kind of system to be set up to engage the newer managers it needs to be done on the actual site and made sustainable by not overwhelming the new manager with too many opinions or overwhelm the mentor with assigning them too many mentors. I am fine with a communal approach, but it should be separate from the U21 structure

It shouldn't be the responsibility of the U21 manager. They already have enough on their plate.

This is exactly what I'm proposing, Bainsy...er, Mr Benchong (seriously, how long are you going to go with that? lol).
The offsite forum is great and has, as you mentioned, operate well in the past for compartmentalising all the roles and such; however, managers are lazy. A forum created here in BB where a manager can simply register, enter and access everything U21 NT related would, imo, be simpler and more user-friendly. I will have more to say on this when it is appropriate.

I have to disagree with your suggestion that the communal approach should be kept separate from the U21 stuff. Why should it? Yes, the Coach will have plenty to be thinking about as it is but that is why I suggest a hierarchal structure with specified roles and responsibilities. I don't want to go into things I will perhaps talk about later but while the idea of multiple roles and responsibilities sounds like it could become tedious and hard to maintain (managers losing interest / RL shit etc), if set up properly, these roles can be immediately filled---if necessary---by anyone willing who would simply need to quickly aquaint themselves with the responsibilites attached to the role.

Getting back to the communal aspects being linked with U21 NT business. The Coach will have clear roles and responsibilites. As will the Assistant Coaches. There will be---in my model---Experts to call on. Training Experts for positions. There will be Experts for dealing with noobs who ask those same old questions but need respectful answers and guidance. There will be---in my model---a PR Manager whose job will be to keep the Aussie BB community abreast of upcoming games, previous scores, brief game analysis...but in a tongue-in-cheek approach that will be interesting and engaging and hopefully entertaining. Managers of U21 players need value for effort. We ask them to train them in certain positions at times. We ask them to get them a certain number of minutes and we expect their players to be kept in Proficient GS. But what do we provide them in return? We need to start thinking about what the Coaching staff can do to keep them interested and valued.

I hadn't intended to write so much...my apologies. I just feel we are at a time when keeping it simple stupid, while providing a professional and valued structure is important.

A number of these things were ideas I put forward in my NT election proposal. I'm thinking of running but also thinking if I would prefer to wait and try again for the NT role.

The U21 is much harder than the NT gig, but far more rewarding.

I had teams of mentors set up but most people just floated away.

The mentoring had the most success when I micromanaged all trainees, but that was almost a few hours a week.

If Iwen's no longer running for the U21 role, I'll put my hand up for the U21 election.

Im currently training two 18yo HOFs with another on the way in this seasons draft. My teams in a rebuilding phase so I do have the time to do some work on improving the U21 team and prospects.