I do stand by it, because I still think the Flames were the tougher match-up, even with home court. I spent a fair amount of time considering both match-ups when it was clear I would land in a relegation series, and neither were very appealing to me to be honest, but to me it kept coming out as Flames=tougher. If I could do it over again though I'd definitely reconsider the specific game tactics of last night. But, Red Terrors won it as much as I did anything to lose it, so certainly he deserves credit for a well played series.
The walkover was not meant as disrespect to anybody, and it wasn't about draft position, it was more just trying to give myself the best odds in a desperate situation, which arose way back with the late revival of the Flames. Once Flames and Bobcats started dumping money into low bid, high salary veterans, the writing was kind of on the wall for me.
This was a season with a less than ideal (for winning right now) training regiment, so we probably underachieved all year to begin with, on top of already carrying a low salary/talent roster relative to most teams in the league. So, when a few teams at the bottom made a late push to up their talent, RSAS really didn't have either the on-roster talent or the W-L cushion to hold anyone off.
There was probably still enough time, once I saw Flames become active again and began to believe the 6th seed match-up was unwinnable, to sell some guys and re-tool with players similar to the competition, but in the end I didn't think it was the right move long-term. The value of those players wasn't there for my club, and I don't think (or I guess hope, at this point) my week to week income will be drastically lower winning in D.VI vs. losing in D.III. So, I ended up hoping we could pull out a relegation series with what we had, and I think if I hadn't gotten conservative with tactics last night, I'd at least have given myself a decent chance to be writing a different sort of post today.
Ultimately though I knew these first two seasons in D.III both ran a high risk of relegation, the first because we promoted a year 'early' compared to when I thought we might be ready, the second because I knew I'd be training and managing the team this season in a way that left it vulnerable to something like this.
I'm bummed to be leaving the league though, I'll definitely miss the forum activity etc. Hopefully next season proves successful enough for RSAS to give themselves the chance to make a return visit to our home these last two seasons.