The first round of the newly formerd Super League was held on Tuesday 9th Feb 2010 at University.
The new courts were a fitting place to host the new league with its new format, point a rally to 11, best of five games. Same rules apply as usual and double yellow dots are used.
The teams are based upon the Matrix rankings, making teams more even across the league.
I guess at this early stage, the most contentious issue is the games going to 11.
Most teams were finished by just after 10pm, when in the old format, there might be one or even two matches still to be played. What was your experience, and do you think that playing to 15 is better? Did you have a challenging match?
Fill-ins also pose a challenge. Basically, fill-ins can be from any club, and can only fill in positions where the regular player has a higher matrix ranking. Adding to this, the organiser of the old pennant has changed the A1 night from Wednesday to Tuesday, in direct competition.
Where does this put players that aren't in the Super League, but still want to play in the highest pennant grade?
Is it doubtful that any other A1 players will play in the old league?
Overall, the majority of comments were positive, with many players enjoying the different games. Will this new shine wear off? Will this encourage other players to get involved?
Add your comments below, be anonymous or add display your name, the choice is yours.
Stay tuned for a updates, the next pennant night is next Tuesday at Kingston.
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Thanks Bill for putting the blog site together – I thought the strengthening of the teams was a real benefit of the new pennant. Hopefully numbers will improve with a serious competition and a new administration such that the 6 team pennant can increase back to an 8 team pennant to make for a more robust competition. I would certainly like to see all squash venues being utilized.
ReplyDeletePicking up on the 11 point scoring system, I think after three rounds the situation will become clearer as to whether or not the system needs to be tinkered with. In the end everyone is after a competitive and reasonable hit of squash. Having said that I think after the first night some tinkering may be required – why? – we finished before 10 (even with two matches going best of 5) and playing on a hot night with a bouncy ball Mid winter we may be tucked up in bed at 9! The scoring system works well enough with two players evenly placed, however if there is some difference between the two players the games seem to finish too quickly. Perhaps we just need to change the way we play the points.
Also – would like to see in place a relegation system based on the matrix at the end of each pennant – so that the player with the highest matrix rating on each line moves up and replaces the lowest matrix rating player. Ideally the new administration should control all grades so that a true relegation system works between grades and ensures a stronger competition. This system effectively re-instates what occurred in the past – and breaks the chain of playing with mates and only keeps the serious ones wanting to continue to play. Otherwise the main competition deteriorates to a social event.
Mark
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ReplyDeleteWell it was certainly good to see that beer was available on the premises!! Shhh......
ReplyDeletePAR scoring is very different to Hand-in-hand-out scoring and it will probably take us a whole pennant to get used to playing / scoring in that way. It requires a different mental game and I reckon once people make that adjustment, the games should be longer.
Relegation and promotion system... very important and i think it is up to us ALL to try and nut out a system that will work. Could be Matrix based and some type of challenge system in between pennants?
Mark d