Vijil
22-11-2010, 10:30
Like Sy, I can't remember all the results - all I know is that SCK won and Clown Monkeys were second. Congrats to those guys :)
This was a great tournament. It was the first time NZ has seen a turf based field, the first time (that I'm aware of) that we're had a head ref come from overseas and the first time we've played RaceTo3 at a national level event. All of those things were great.
Here's the pros and cons as I see them:
Pros
- Great field. Great layout. This was the 2010 PSP World Cup layout and it seemed to work well. People had fun on it.
- Good refs. If I dare say so myself. The penalty system seemed to work well and we were well prepared and briefed, were given radios to sort things out, and shields, and food, and accommodation, and lots of liquid, and beer... and all of us had played tournaments and most had reffed other events. If you want good refs this is how you do it. Fuzzy made sure we were fired up to do a good job too and I think it generally worked.
- Good paint. Teams seemed very happy with it. It was stored in a temperature controlled area prior to being given to the teams.
- Great air. A QUIET compressor with individual fill stations in the pit boxes. Brilliant idea.
- Enforced tank legality. Great to see that this is taken seriously.
- Calm. I didn't see anyone throw a gun or blow up at the refs or other players. I saw no fights and when teams had a problem with a ref decision they sent their captain or coach to talk to the head ref in a civilised manner. This was great to see. In general everyone had a good attitude throughout the tournament even when things were going wrong for some.
- DerDer. Wtf. We had DERDER come and film?! Awesome. That says so much about the quality of the tournament that these things were considered.
- Format. Coaching was allowed but only by certain people, which is something I think works for NZ. RaceTo3 was certainly exciting and made for some epic contests. 12.5 bps capped semi also worked well and probably kept paint consumption down a bit. I don't know how much teams were shooting though. With eight teams this format meant we could still have a great time.
Cons
There's not much to say here, it's more things that teams need to look out for.
- bps cap. This led to a lot of gun penalties and I sure felt sorry for ADHD when they had to play with two people for an entire match. Whether this is the reason they came last I don't know, but I hope they still had fun overall. This is more a teething problem than an issue with the rules.
- the refs had some teething issues too on day one mostly. I know of a couple of bung calls (as always) but the ones I know of didn't affect the results as far as I can tell. I made one myself that was contended civilly, but in hindsight I would have done pretty much the same thing.
- location. It's in the wops a bit, but this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
- miscommunication. At one stage (or more than once?) a team drew a point but thought they had lost, and left the pits. This led to all kinds of confusion and no doubt threw people off their games. A scoreboard would help, but ideally the refs would be informing teams of the score and what was happening next. That was partly my bad even though half the time even the refs didn't know the score besides the scorekeeper.
Sum up
All in all this was a great tourney. I'm glad I went and reffed. It gives me hope for the future of NZ ball which is something I haven't had for a while now. Lets see if we can move things onwards and upwards from here!
This was a great tournament. It was the first time NZ has seen a turf based field, the first time (that I'm aware of) that we're had a head ref come from overseas and the first time we've played RaceTo3 at a national level event. All of those things were great.
Here's the pros and cons as I see them:
Pros
- Great field. Great layout. This was the 2010 PSP World Cup layout and it seemed to work well. People had fun on it.
- Good refs. If I dare say so myself. The penalty system seemed to work well and we were well prepared and briefed, were given radios to sort things out, and shields, and food, and accommodation, and lots of liquid, and beer... and all of us had played tournaments and most had reffed other events. If you want good refs this is how you do it. Fuzzy made sure we were fired up to do a good job too and I think it generally worked.
- Good paint. Teams seemed very happy with it. It was stored in a temperature controlled area prior to being given to the teams.
- Great air. A QUIET compressor with individual fill stations in the pit boxes. Brilliant idea.
- Enforced tank legality. Great to see that this is taken seriously.
- Calm. I didn't see anyone throw a gun or blow up at the refs or other players. I saw no fights and when teams had a problem with a ref decision they sent their captain or coach to talk to the head ref in a civilised manner. This was great to see. In general everyone had a good attitude throughout the tournament even when things were going wrong for some.
- DerDer. Wtf. We had DERDER come and film?! Awesome. That says so much about the quality of the tournament that these things were considered.
- Format. Coaching was allowed but only by certain people, which is something I think works for NZ. RaceTo3 was certainly exciting and made for some epic contests. 12.5 bps capped semi also worked well and probably kept paint consumption down a bit. I don't know how much teams were shooting though. With eight teams this format meant we could still have a great time.
Cons
There's not much to say here, it's more things that teams need to look out for.
- bps cap. This led to a lot of gun penalties and I sure felt sorry for ADHD when they had to play with two people for an entire match. Whether this is the reason they came last I don't know, but I hope they still had fun overall. This is more a teething problem than an issue with the rules.
- the refs had some teething issues too on day one mostly. I know of a couple of bung calls (as always) but the ones I know of didn't affect the results as far as I can tell. I made one myself that was contended civilly, but in hindsight I would have done pretty much the same thing.
- location. It's in the wops a bit, but this wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
- miscommunication. At one stage (or more than once?) a team drew a point but thought they had lost, and left the pits. This led to all kinds of confusion and no doubt threw people off their games. A scoreboard would help, but ideally the refs would be informing teams of the score and what was happening next. That was partly my bad even though half the time even the refs didn't know the score besides the scorekeeper.
Sum up
All in all this was a great tourney. I'm glad I went and reffed. It gives me hope for the future of NZ ball which is something I haven't had for a while now. Lets see if we can move things onwards and upwards from here!