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Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 13:21:28 -0500
From: Ian Peter Stebbing <106040.3441@compuserve.com>
Subject: Team Structures/Formations
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Status: RO

The geo / non-geo debate has many factors, I would like to add a slightly
different slant to it.

Shotgun are the best team in the country outdoors and have proved it time
and again. This is not however purely because they can train together but
has other equally important factors.

1) Aram brought with him from the States many new ideas and strategies the
rest of us did not know and it took us a long time to counter and then be
able to utilise them ourselves. This advantage has all but disappeared
against the other top teams as the knowledge is now widely known, thanks
mainly to Shotgun and Aram making it available.

2) Shotgun had enough quality players to be able to continually rotate
people without having to put exploitable players on the pitch. No other
team was in this position. The size of the Shotgun squad at tournaments was
always bigger than any other. This meant that against weaker sides they
could rest their top players leaving them fresh for the crunch games and
vica versa against stronger teams.

There are reasons why I believe these were just as important and how the
non-geo teams have approached closing the gap, because we after all want to
be the best and do not see it as a lost cause.

The only real advantage a geo based team has is the extra familiarity that
playing week in week out with your team mates brings, not fitness, new
plays and new strategies. On the other hand if you are an old boys team
there is a good chance you've just spent the last 3 years playing together
although this familiarity can soon fade.

Ian Stebbing
Fluid Druids