What will TonTon do?

[shoaibaktar]

My thoughts on this are it does have potential, but just to clarify what do you mean by super pro clinic? Also, if any team is allowed to qualify, surely it will be pointless as the player numbers will far outway the pros as it is? Also, several clinics are run throughout the year, for example Tigers have had theirs recently, how would it improve on these type of clinics where the player to pro ratio is very good from what feedback I read and heard, in order to make it a "super pro clinic"? I attended a clinic with Nicky T back in the day and that was effectively 2/3 of the day doing skills 1on1, with the rest sat on the grass doing nothing and 1/3 of the day playing games against each other to put these new "skills" into practice. Now two things really came out of that for me, 1. I don't want to sit down for two hours, do nothing and pay for it, and 2. There is no point playing games when the level difference in players is so large, ranging from beginners to long term players, because those who have played longer will learn nothing from shooting someone with their elbow in no-mans land. (Not bashing the clinic here, just personal experience, your opinion may differ )How would teams looking to build rosters get much of an idea of gameplay when you have this problem? And how would you ensure value for money? Just throwing a few things out there that might be of concern, but nice idea.

Tigers had theirs yesterday and had the team doing the clinic ,so you had 7 mentors to overcome the long quque 2minute chat followed by day on the grass scenario.Team clinics are one way forward.The DV8 ,coach for a season ,they did with Clint is another approach ,far better for the pro.As he has all season with 10 players max to make a discernable difference ,along the same lines as Project K. For a clinic as you say if its open house ,without a large number of coaching pros the mass and ability range will dilute the effectiveness and with a team attending a clinic you will get best practice reinforced afterwards in play and discussing the input.

 

[pablo666]

@pablo666 I think its more to do with having the time to:

A - watch enough games to see someone do something noteworthy
B - watch that person another 5-10 times to see if it was a fluke

You have to consider also that in the lower divisions you can get away with a lot more. So a player who manages to go shoot 3 dudes in a point, but makes a whole load of mistakes along the way that they should have been punished for, but got away with, can look significantly better than they probably are.

I'm not saying we don't already do this though, but that it has to be put in context of the environment you are viewing people in and the time you have available to dedicate to it.

You also have to consider that from Nexus perspective, we are less likely to pick up players from outside the Elite division unless we see a real diamond in the rough. We are always going to be looking more at players on established (Millennium) divisional teams who look ready to step up another level.

I have no doubt if you took the time to pick 7 players from outside the Elite division you could compile a team that would be competent and able, probably competitive too - but that is the minimum you want from an Elite team. By no means would they be instant contenders for winning the events.

As for the France/UK/Millennium thing, yes they are a bigger country with a larger population, but their depth lies in the national structure - they have regional feeder series that feed into the main national league. You have to earn your way up through the divisions, which develops teams and players alike. This year the CPPS division was invitation only, which is where Ainsley and the guys had to start out, but essentially if a team made a good enough case for themselves they could have got in to the Elite division; as we saw all year it was not the same 10 teams at each leg. Hopefully starting next season we will start to see a bit more structure in a sense of promotion/relegation at the top end and you will see a few young upstart teams trying to earn their way in and that is what I would like to see.

@Ash - DYE Europe Surely throughout the year at the CPPS, being 5 events, and teams playing many games, r t 4 in div 1 and r t 2 in 2 and 3 there are ample opportunities? It appears fairly simple to find out fixture lists for each division and as nearly every team now has "sponsorship" or a kit deal as it is normally, finding the team name shouldn't be too tough and from there you can watch the player to remove any doubts about fluke etc.? I understand I am just hypothesising here but interested in your thought as a player who could do these sort of things given your experience i.e scouting the correct potential.

I understand about players making moves and that they can get away with some which in more experienced teams, would be blown off the field, but surely if they are looking, thinking and aware at an early stage about making these sort of moves, there is a lot of potential to develop there which could in turn improve the team who have been watching and training him? After all that is what every team wants, competent players to push the team as far as possible.

With regard to looking at players from established millennium divisional teams for yourselves that is understandable, to compete in the CPL you are playing the best so need the best, my point is going out to all teams, you yourself mentioned you played for tigers and ECI and I am sure teams previous to these as well? How did you build your way up into Nexus out of interest? Could that way work again and is more needed to be done perhaps by Div 1 or SPL teams to pick out the diamonds in the rough in order for them to reach Nexus and help the U.K Pro talent pool?

Sure they wouldn't be instant contenders for winning events, but I more meant that they could be picked up and developed by teams such as yourselves is there is a real talent, and i'm sure communication about players BETWEEN teams in the higher divisions could only benefit the U.K as a whole in paintball terms. You or any other high div teams see a player with the potential for what your looking for out of luck for example, you let an SPL or Div 1 team know about them obviously based on location and details, and from there they begin the climb to the top? It would be better than going "bugger, they aren't quite good enough, ohh well maybe we can pick them up in the future if they make the right choices". I don't know how much communication goes on between higher ranked teams, Tigers and Nexus I assume a fair amount due to the obvious player swaps between you guys, but others as well?

On the France/Uk thing, I guess one problem, and this is my own experience of what I have seen, is that there are too many tournament scenes in the U.K. In my opinion and I hope you'll agree, the CPPS is by far the leader given team turnouts at events. But then what about the other tournaments? I won't name names but i'm sure you will figure it out. Is it a case of having too many leagues so some teams play at one while other play at another while others play at another? Would having perhaps 1-2 leagues improve the situation? I mean the people who run these tournaments do so for the love of it and it I assume brings in some money, so it's not a very practical answer here, but don't know if this is a problem?

 

[Biscuit]

My thoughts on this are it does have potential, but just to clarify what do you mean by super pro clinic? Also, if any team is allowed to qualify, surely it will be pointless as the player numbers will far outway the pros as it is? Also, several clinics are run throughout the year, for example Tigers have had theirs recently, how would it improve on these type of clinics where the player to pro ratio is very good from what feedback I read and heard, in order to make it a "super pro clinic"? I attended a clinic with Nicky T back in the day and that was effectively 2/3 of the day doing skills 1on1, with the rest sat on the grass doing nothing and 1/3 of the day playing games against each other to put these new "skills" into practice. Now two things really came out of that for me, 1. I don't want to sit down for two hours, do nothing and pay for it, and 2. There is no point playing games when the level difference in players is so large, ranging from beginners to long term players, because those who have played longer will learn nothing from shooting someone with their elbow in no-mans land. (Not bashing the clinic here, just personal experience, your opinion may differ )How would teams looking to build rosters get much of an idea of gameplay when you have this problem? And how would you ensure value for money? Just throwing a few things out there that might be of concern, but nice idea.

too answer your points pablo,what i mean by a super clinic,is too run one big clinic on say the saturday before the CPPS,know on the coaches side if you see how many clinics have been run by the tigers,jason wheeler,nexus,the firm etc etc,why not have them all running on the same day at the same venue.
as for qualifying i mean at each round of say the CPPS you pay a nominal fee towards your entry too the clinic so spreading the cost too the player over season,with last payment on day of clinic.
obviously this should be aimed at the lower div players,as these guys are the future and would get the most from it.
the side effect for the elite teams would be good PR and alot of new players looking too see what these guys are doing

 

[hipjaw]

@Ash - DYE Europe Surely throughout the year at the CPPS, being 5 events, and teams playing many games, r t 4 in div 1 and r t 2 in 2 and 3 there are ample opportunities? It appears fairly simple to find out fixture lists for each division and as nearly every team now has "sponsorship" or a kit deal as it is normally, finding the team name shouldn't be too tough and from there you can watch the player to remove any doubts about fluke etc.? I understand I am just hypothesising here but interested in your thought as a player who could do these sort of things given your experience i.e scouting the correct potential.

I understand about players making moves and that they can get away with some which in more experienced teams, would be blown off the field, but surely if they are looking, thinking and aware at an early stage about making these sort of moves, there is a lot of potential to develop there which could in turn improve the team who have been watching and training him? After all that is what every team wants, competent players to push the team as far as possible.

With regard to looking at players from established millennium divisional teams for yourselves that is understandable, to compete in the CPL you are playing the best so need the best, my point is going out to all teams, you yourself mentioned you played for tigers and ECI and I am sure teams previous to these as well? How did you build your way up into Nexus out of interest? Could that way work again and is more needed to be done perhaps by Div 1 or SPL teams to pick out the diamonds in the rough in order for them to reach Nexus and help the U.K Pro talent pool?

Sure they wouldn't be instant contenders for winning events, but I more meant that they could be picked up and developed by teams such as yourselves is there is a real talent, and i'm sure communication about players BETWEEN teams in the higher divisions could only benefit the U.K as a whole in paintball terms. You or any other high div teams see a player with the potential for what your looking for out of luck for example, you let an SPL or Div 1 team know about them obviously based on location and details, and from there they begin the climb to the top? It would be better than going "bugger, they aren't quite good enough, ohh well maybe we can pick them up in the future if they make the right choices". I don't know how much communication goes on between higher ranked teams, Tigers and Nexus I assume a fair amount due to the obvious player swaps between you guys, but others as well?

On the France/Uk thing, I guess one problem, and this is my own experience of what I have seen, is that there are too many tournament scenes in the U.K. In my opinion and I hope you'll agree, the CPPS is by far the leader given team turnouts at events. But then what about the other tournaments? I won't name names but i'm sure you will figure it out. Is it a case of having too many leagues so some teams play at one while other play at another while others play at another? Would having perhaps 1-2 leagues improve the situation? I mean the people who run these tournaments do so for the love of it and it I assume brings in some money, so it's not a very practical answer here, but don't know if this is a problem?

It's every young player's dream to be picked up by a much better team and groomed into a world class player. Very rarely will a young player be developed in this way because when it comes to being the best at sport you need to show hard work, dedication and commitment. Something that young players can't demonstrate that they can offer until they show that they can do it.

At the end of 2010 I decided to pick up a marker and said to myself 'I want to be the best that I possibly can at this game'. Throughout 2011 I guested for as many teams as I could at the CPPS and Super5ives and drove from Bristol to Hereford, Bricketwood or CPPS to train with whoever I could every weekend I had available. In 2012 I finally found a team and played with Snatch at the CPPS and went from one of their weaker players they were giving a chance to, to being picked to play every point by the time we got to the last round. This was because I carried on investing loads of money and time into getting better, training around the country wherever I could. Pre-2013 season I was picked up by Entity and started out as one of the least experienced, weaker players but after a lot of hard work and willingness to improve I was on the starting 5 of an Elite CPPS team and after the first round I played every single point for the team (bar literally 1 or 2). Again this year I have been training every weekend, Saturday and Sunday, when I can (thank god for Cribbs pro pb training ground opening up locally) and so I earnt that spot through hard graft and consistent training.

Only now, after 2-3 years of hard work and training do I feel like I can at least sit at the same table as the other players in the Elite league, but even so I can still see there is a huge difference between my skill level and decision making compared to those that perform well in the SPL and CPL.

So to answer your question in short Pablo - If you want to know what goes into becoming an SPL/CPL player, you need to stop looking towards the teams that are already there and look inwards towards the player and whether or not they want it enough to put in the hard work to get there.

Don't look at clinics as the only way to get better, use them as an opportunity for you to ask questions and refer to experienced players to make sure you're training the right way.

Roughly 60% of my time at training is made up of some variation of a snap-shooting, running and gunning, breakout shooting or gunfighting drill if I have someone else there, whether it is against them or against targets.

The other 30-40% is game situations, 1v1s, 2v1s, 3v2s etc. How hard are those drills to set up? Not at all. I have had productive sessions going to train by myself with 2 bunkers, 1 box of paint and snap shooting for an hour.

Guidance helps you along the way but the real improvement comes from putting the work in yourself, do that and you will get noticed. Just don't expect it to come next week.

The pro teams don't do much else from what I have seen, apart from the fact that they hold scrim days with other teams where they will either play 10 second points to practice different breakouts or play points against each other as if it was a tournament.

The point I'm trying to make is that it takes a lot of time and effort to get someone to a high standard, teams can fast track young talented players to a degree but that is a massive gamble on their part. I've seen young players come out of the woodwork and improve dramatically in short spaces of time, only to hit 17-18 and stop playing so they can go and party with their friends or they go to uni etc etc.

Unfortunately you can't prove that you're committed until you have shown commitment and to do that you need to commit to improving yourself in the meantime.

EDIT: I kind of rambled through that making a point that you have to put in the effort and didn't really respond directly to your post.

When it comes to 'scouting', it does happen. One of our guys noticed that a particular player was playing consistently well and so we asked him to come train with us for a session and now he's on our main squad for 2014. Before that point though he was playing with the best teams he could get on and therefore got noticed.

But why wait to be scouted? If you want to get picked up by a better team. Talk to people on teams that are where you want to be. If someone came up to us and said 'I want to play on your team' we would tell them "Come and start training with us and we will see if you have the potential to be up to standard by the start of next season" or if they can't because they're already committed to their current team for the rest of the year, we would then keep an eye on them for a couple events. Other teams will do the same.

 

[frobinson]

This thread has gone slightly askew from the original topic but going back to it now, if anybody has watched the most recent (episode 15) edition of PBA's The Breakdown, they talked about Karl and the TonTons a bit. I don't suppose anyone is in any doubt that the TonTons won't play the PSP in 2014 after their public statement, but Todd hints at Axel and Loic playing on Red Storm (formerly Grad Moscow) for 2014, who may or may not make the bump up to play in the Pro bracket since DMG and Jesters are dropping back down to D1.

With this newly found space in the challengers bracket, you've got wonder if another European team will jump across the pond, but who really has the money too? At the very least, you would expect some of the TonTons to individually appear on other teams in the PSP next year, especially since they've proved they can compete. With the imminent departure of 3 RL players to AC, I wonder if any of them will get drafted on to Legion for this coming season. You would almost expect to see Axel back there, but the rumour was that he too was potentially going to AC. Maybe Karl will go to RL, who knows.

Incidentally, does anyone know if Art Chaos will have to start in the Challengers bracket next year?

And finally, if you want to watch the PBA video, here it is.