Division IV. Email Template

Good Afternoon,

My name’s Mark, and you might see me on the forums as “Courage1989”. This is an email in conjunction with those on the English Blackout Rugby Forums (England Manager, Seasoned Managers and England U20 Managers), and a helpful guide on how to survive and develop your side in Div IV., and in preparation for Div III.

These are the primary requirements for staying in Division 4:

1. Senior Squad: 25k-30k CSR Players (All between 17-20 yrs.)
2. Senior Training Facilities Level 3


1. Senior Squad: 25k-30k CSR Players (All between 17-20 yrs.)
This is important. Each player needs to be young, so they last you a long time, and in the future have a selling point from which to work with, whilst looking for better players. This also means, your squads will be far too strong for bots in relegation matches, so you’ll stay in the division, and you’ll be too strong for a newbie manager trying to push up a division and take your place.

2. Senior Training Facilities Level 3
For long term development this is very important. Each upgrade means your players will train faster. At level 3, you’ll have the highest level coach you can get. The players will be getting the optimum TT every week, and 4 sessions will be taken. This is a pre requisite for every club in the country. A very important stepping stone for any club.


As far as developing your club, and where you go from there, I recommend the following:

- Stadium Development
- Senior Training Facilities Level 4
- Youth Training Facilities Level 2/3

Developing your club: The Stadium
Very important you don’t do this straight away, as it costs a lot of money, and even promoting from Div V. you won’t have the money to develop this and the side at the same time, and you want to make sure you stay in the Division. There are links on the site below, on how to develop your stadium, and what’s best for your side. Signing up to it, is very useful. Basics are though, the bigger your stadium, bigger the income, but don’t do too big as you will have to pay for each seat without a ticket at a home game, costing you a lot of money. Develop carefully.

Developing your club: Senior Training Facilities Level 4
Long term, getting out of the division, this is a pre-requisite. You can’t leave Div. IV without this upgrade in facilities. Why? Well, at Level 4, your looking at developing Under 20 material players for the national side. As a comparison after 4 seasons of training (17-21st birthday):

Level 2s: 50-60k CSR
Level 3s 90-100k CSR
Level 4s 150-160k CSR
Level 5s 200-250k CSR

Almost no one can afford Level 5s in Division IV, and it’s very hard in division III to have them so don’t attempt to get them. A 150k-160k CSR player is the average standard of player in Division III, so level 4s are your best bet. Fairly affordable too, so after squad development I recommend getting this next.

Developing your club: Youth Training Facilities Level 2/3
The least favourable, but potentially very useful update if you can afford them in a Div IV. Outfit. First off, the more stars you apply to each player, the better the average pull will be. A recommendation of 20 stars per player. This will give a player with potentially good CSR, and good mentals, and with Level 3 scouts, that’s 1 player every 2 weeks. Very achievable. With a good coach, the players will get better training each week, so when their ready to pull for the seniors, potentially, they could make money for you, or, they could be good enough to be trained up.

Also, adds an extra dimension to the game, and more enjoyment as a result. More explained on the offsite shown below.


Ways to Make Money:

- Increase Stadium (More Income per home game)
- Develop kids with level 4 facilities, for 4 seasons then sell.
- Higher Finishing Position in the Senior Leagues.
- Win the Youth League.

Other sources of information which are useful to managers:

https://brengland.forumotion.com/ - The England Forums. Helpful and friendly. Lots of tactical and insightful information, at all tiers.

I hope this information helps and I'm going to send this to each coach in each division individually.

Many thanks,
Mark

(Posted on the League Forum for any future use if this email is deleted)

I would debate some of these points.

Firstly, I don't think it's good having all your squad within the same age bracket. It's surely more efficient to have a rolling age range so you can constantly replace your older players 1/2 or 3 at a time rather than having to replace 7 or 8 for example. A rolling age bracket also gives you the time to train the replacements. 22 17-21 year olds means that you can only train a maximum of 3 relatively efficiently; what happens to the other 19?

Secondly, infrastructure is much more key than players. If you buy in 50-60k CSR players for div IV you will cripple yourself financially with the cost of the players and then the following cost of wages. Even if you buy threee 25-30k CSR youngsters, what's the use unless you can train them up with coaching infrastructure? The stadium is the key to generating profit alongside sponsors; if you grow faster than your sponsors can support you then you are in massive trouble.
Grow your club, then grow your players.

Thirdly, I, on the whole, do not like guides. I think they're quite dangerous and lead to robotic play with seemingly guaranteed results. It's brilliant in principle what you're doing but telling people how to do it without actually responding to their individual questions is not that useful. I love the offsite because it allows individually tailored responses on a large scale.

We really need to get everyone on here that we can as, I guarantee you, clubs flourish under tailored guidance.

I agree with courage on the 25-30k players, though I'd increase the age range to 23.

These aren't players that will be replaced because of aging Ted, they're players that will lose their spots in the squad as others get better and supplant them (through the 3 at a time training). Therefore you won't be forced to try and replace an aging player, and by the time you're aiming for promotion, they'll be 50-60k players, either lower 1st xv, or good bench players. Once you get to this stage, then you will have the rolling age groups, which are better for the higher levels of the game.

More comments to come later.

I think setting a young squad to begin with has an advantage. In that you can keep all the original players that you don't replace for 10+ seasons. So whatever shape, size, positional changes you improve on during your first 6 seasons you don't need to worry.

After you've built a base of 50-60k+ players then consider who you're going to add in the 100k+ players, and how your're going to shape a sustainable squad.

I think it's a nice idea if it's just giving ideas. Beyond the move to lvl 3s asap I think the rest can be left to the individual even with the guide

I'd only tailor down the level 5 training, only exceptional players will be in the 200k-250k bracket, apart from that it's pretty useful.

Level 4 is high too. Behind Wordy last season only the best of those trained on level 5s got to 150k. And only 2 players have ever got to 200k so level 5s is definitely too high as Jonny said.

Oh yeah didn't realise there was such a gap between lvl 3s and 4s,

Level 2s: 50-60k CSR No clue about lvl 2s
Level 3s 90-110k CSR
Level 4s 120-140k CSR
Level 5s 150-190k CSR

Maybe those would be better?

its about right i reckon,

although i have to say that the U20 guy i trained on 2 seasons lvl2 and 2 seasons lvl 3 had 142k CSR at the start of the U20 WC, and he started with 26k. oh and he was a back so i didnt just pump his core stats.

I would say the lvl ranges are much wider.

Lvl 3's give 100-140
Lvl 4's 120- 160
Lvl 5's 140- 180

Reason for this, take my two current U20 players. both started training the same week one started on 25k the other on 22k. there is now 18k difference between them, why because the top guy has been on impressive form for most of the last season, not only boosting his actuall CSR but (due to the way CSR increases work) boosting the amount gained each week.