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My Boy Harry was a 2 season Nt player. My 1st ever real trainee.

I also purchased Foster to try and train him to Nt level but could not affird his 180k salary and sold him on to an other local manager.

I also have a current trainee who started late I hope to make into a NT player one day.

Also with my role with NT side I have spoken to and helped lots of other coaches get their guys ready for the NT side and seen someone of these make it into the side this season. I like to think I played a small part in them getting there.

Ah hem. Fantastic thread, really. I enjoyed reading through it.

But as Phil Duffie ala Modern family puts it.......

Okay lets get real people!!

Question for those running.


Q: Who have you trained for the Australian U21 or National team sides. List who you have trained and what you sacrificed to train them up to U21/NT standards.

If you have not trained anyone for the U21 or NT sides, list someone you purchased to assist the U21 or NT side.

If you cant answer either question, perhaps you should try.....

Great questions, Kilrtom.

I have trained 2 U21 NT players: Marcelo Rodriguez (19280995) for Argentina and Johnny Dogan (21093777) for Australia. So I do have some experience and more importantly, understanding of the commitment required by managers to train up an U21 NT player. Both of these players have been trained from scratch and I recently sold Marcelo "Hot Rod" Rodriguez in prepar for Div III. However, my training commitment did not end with Dogan's U21 NT selection. No, I am still training him and he will be closer to $140k salary at the end of this year with a skill set that will become handy for the NT I believe. Particularly given the impeneding changes to SB. I will speak more of this in a moment.

Additionally, Kilrtom, I helped Iwen for a while as a Mentor for 19yr old SFs, which Sid can attest to as he was pretty much the only manager responding and keeping me updated. However, my RL caused me to stop doing that role which I regret. So, I do also have some experience with the mentoring side of the U21 NT even if it was limited. I also know how the offsite forum operates and why it needs to be replaced. Hopefully these answer your questions.

@Mickyster and Ezilife, I would like to pose a question to my fellow candidates:

What will you change---in terms of roster, player positions and skill sets, and tactics---given the imminent changes to the GE regarding the added value SB is going to have? I would like to briefly state my thoughts as on this topic as a starter.


If I am elected as the next U21 NT Coach I will be looking to have a roster that has greater variety than in previous years. Why? Put simply, teams will probably be of two minds regarding the increased value of SB. On one hand they will perhaps continue to run LI offenses and m2m defences until there is evidence that it is not as effective as before. On the other hand, teams are, imo, going to soon have to look at running outside offenses too. As a result, where we may have formerly got away with playing 2 PGs and 3 bigs in a LI offense with teams with weaker ID, we will have to have more SGs who can both play outside offense well and, more importantly, be able to defend the perimeter more than in previous seasons. I would think that a higher OD on guards will have to be considered. Not only that, if we are to play a LI offense knowing of the effect SB will have, we will needs guards (and SFs) with higher IS too to try and compensate for the stronger SB. Given that we may have to start looking at outside offenses like Run and Gun and Motion also means greater shooting range on our SFs and PFs etc. For all of these reasons I think we will have to have a much greater variety of player skills sets available to pick from each week.

Additionally, and this is a factor managers of U21 NT players aren’t going to like, where we may have utilised 10 regular players in seasons gone, this will have to change given the above. More players will get call ups depending on the tactics used on account of the greater range of tactics that will be employed. More players mean less minutes on average. This is something managers will have to adjust to.


Last edited by Mr J at 6/12/2013 6:45:05 AM

My qu: As the sole keen participant on the training side of the offsite forum this season, id like to know what people intend to do to ensure the offsite forum is revitalised. Im hearing excuses about a 2nd website people need to login to, but realistically, it offers far better information from an aussie player perspective than BB itself can, and is safe from offshore scouters. For the real keen trainers, I think it is an absolute must.

Last edited by whitewind at 6/12/2013 7:29:10 AM

In my long rant I did mention wanting more variety within the squad. And not just for the changes with SB. If we can have options to swap players in and out based on teams needs each game we can take sides by surprise. Examples would be having players more focused on O or D. With options at each position we can alter how we defend and attack in each game. This I believe as you mentioned be vital for teams moving forward with the changes in the GE.

For me I would see this happening with guys half way through season when they are 20 asking a coach to alter his training if possible to focus on either attack or def. Then we will hopefully have options for team selections.

Also it is important to make sure we have players in each position. My boy Harry was the only PF in the squad when he was 20. This really limited Iwen's options with PF and SF. We really were only able to play SGs at SF.

Only the creator of a Federation add and remove people from it.

not true

u can give admin rights 2 other peeps & they can do stuff like ad, drop, sticky etc

my question 2 the candidates is simple

look @ the schedule

4 should wins & 2 should loses

can ne of u guys get us 5 or even 6 wins?

I only have the option of adding mods. No other options to assign right other then to transfer ownership.
And I have added 4 mods to Wombat.



Last edited by Mickyster at 6/12/2013 7:12:26 AM

In my long rant I did mention wanting more variety within the squad. And not just for the changes with SB. If we can have options to swap players in and out based on teams needs each game we can take sides by surprise. Examples would be having players more focused on O or D. With options at each position we can alter how we defend and attack in each game. This I believe as you mentioned be vital for teams moving forward with the changes in the GE.

For me I would see this happening with guys half way through season when they are 20 asking a coach to alter his training if possible to focus on either attack or def. Then we will hopefully have options for team selections.

Also it is important to make sure we have players in each position. My boy Harry was the only PF in the squad when he was 20. This really limited Iwen's options with PF and SF. We really were only able to play SGs at SF.

I agree with all that you have said, Mickyster and thank you for answering my question. The PF position, is a black hole at the moment for us. But I would like to add the following information for people to consider. I went through the teams in our conference (India, Lubnan, Sauid Arabia, Kazakstan, Iran and Indonesia) looking to see who they had on their current rosters in terms of positions and whether thier rosters perhaps signalled what I had referred to in my last post. That is, are they preparing for the GE changes to SB. Now, I realise these numbers are only a snapshot and not entirely accurate given that elections are running, coaches have yet to be decided and more importantly, players selected. However, here's what I found.

Number of players per position:

PG: 7
SG: 16
SF: 9
PF: 9
C: 18

I find it interesting data. It could suggest the disproportionate number of PGs to SGs (7-16 more than double the SGs) suggests that teams are already considering what I spoke of regarding teams preparing to run outside offenses and the need for more SGs with particular skill sets. The high number of Cs suggests--for me--that teams are reluctant to move away from LI offenses just yet or it could mean they are thinking nigs with higher SB will be needed, a skill they can get their managers to hammer if required.

Now, the data above doesn't include Australia. Australia has 3 x PGs, 1 x SG, 3 x SFs, 0 x PFs and 2 Cs. Clearly we have issues that the next U21 NT Coach will need to address quickly if we are to compete with the teams in our conference. PFs, as Mickyster rightly highlighted, are an immediate concern. For me, the ratio of 3:1 for PGs to SGs will have to be adjusted quickly too. We will need outside offensive capabilities. We also have the most SFs than any other team in our conference. This may well be a great advantage and one we can use on either offense or defense depending on their skill sets.

So, these are the facts. Knowing what we need, what we will need them for and having the variety of players with a variety of skill sets to choose from becomes a priority for the next U21 NT Coach.

Looking at the 2 games that could be a issue. They are the last 2 games. So for me getting 5 is possible. One would need to keep an eye on both sides and bank some enthus and pick the game we could win and go for it hard. How we do that would depend on the final make up and how each team plays over the early part of the season. But having both later means we can access where we are at, how we and they are going and make a call on what we need and how to get it closer to the game. Early on I would like to get players training suited to a possible need for winning those games and take it form there. The 2 loses last season where vs same team. In game one we had them even or below on all ratings other then Off Flow. @nd game they had a much higher IS while we had a higher ID.

Again as part of this we would by then have a better idea of the changes to the GE which would need to be taken into consideration when working out the best way to play those games. For vital games I would call upon some of the legends and bounce some ideas off them to take advantage of the brains trust we have here in this country. But in the end 1 person makes the call but getting some ideas to consider is always beneficial IMO.

my question 2 the candidates is simple

look @ the schedule

4 should wins & 2 should loses

can ne of u guys get us 5 or even 6 wins?

Good question, Big Fish, but seriously...how can we answer this yet? Without knowing what the rosters on all teams look like, I don't think we can comment with any substance. As I've just posted, until we decide on our own team (what it will comprise of) and address our immediate issues (no PFs...lack of SGs) we can't answer that question realisstically imo.

I might just add to that, Big Fish that if I could see the draftees and prospects I would have a better idea of who will be on the radar for future seasons and who could come into the team now. I have been trying to get info from BBstats but having no luck. :-(