Posted by Pete van Meurs on
URL: http://oldforum.flyshooter.com.au/Team-vs-individual-Fly-match-tp5152349p5457142.html

Hi All,

I must say that I am not particularly happy with the format Les is proposing for a number of reasons.

Firstly, we already have groups of people working as a team at these shoots (sharing gear and flags etc ) and assisting each other through-out the day. Using the separate class thing would possibly not allow these groups to stay together.  As we still do not know for sure that double entries are going to be accepted we should be careful to establish some format that will work in either case.

Secondly, my experience of these side bets are that they are purely a 'Cash Bash' usually with a 'winner takes all' result. OK, I acknowledge that this might not be to everyones taste and certainly if there is money put in from a sponsor (over and above the 'nomination fee') then he/she can have a substantial say in how the cash gets distributed.

Now consider this - historically there are roughly double LG vs HG entries and the HG people are mostly very committed participants, whereas LG would have  not much more than half it's entry from equally committed people. The upshot of all that is that about one third of the field are 'dabblers' and are unlikely to be interested in a Team match as they would percieve that their chance of being in a strong team is unlikely and even for $20 would possibly not be interested in the lucky draw suggestion.

If my above summation is correct then we would have roughly equal numbers of LG and HG entrants willing to have a go; so I would propose that each 4 person team should consist of 2 pre-nominated shooters in each class. However if this is not possible for all interested parties then additional teams could be formed with 3x LG and 1x HG or even 4x LG. Get the right four people with LG and they will be fully competitive. This will work regardless of the acceptance of double entries. As an example  - 'Team ProCal' already exists for the other reasons stated above and would want to enter the side-bet as a team. If double entries went ahead then we would have to make a choice of class and that would be much less fun than being involved with ALL the other hopefuls. If double entries are not accepted we have already decided to have myself and Jason Trotter shoot HG with Lee-Anne and Tyson Trotter shooting LG class. Separating the classes for the team event would force us to find others to complete two teams and quite frankly we would simply lose all interest and not bother to be in the 'Team' side-bet.

Possibly a distribution of prize money down to say  fifth place in my proposed format will bolster interest in the team match. Also consider that in the separate class proposal we may only get 3 or 4 teams in HG especially. Afterall the better shooters will quickly form up into very strong teams and that will discourage others from bothering

Thankfully any talk of which state members of a team are from has fallen by the wayside as this is quite irrelevant.

In my opinion the format should be as simple as possible and remain flexible to accomodate other possible relevant factors. Also, since it started out as a 'Cash Bash' fun thing why would we bother with trophies or medals - there will be plenty of that stuff for the Nationals and the Fed Cup.

Pete