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As you said, I thought we had a really good chance to beat Germany especially due to the excellent game shape. I think gully made the correct choices as in the offensive play. I re watched the 4th and I find it do weird how they manage to up the ante all of a sudden and we struggle. I'm not giving up hope gully, think you can still manage to pull us through, keep going mate!

I feel like I'm repeating myself here a bit, but I entered tonight's game pretty confident, having seen the tactics and their lineup. I don't think I could have hoped for better, as I said in chat tonight, if I could have chosen an offence to face it would have been motion.

I felt we had a distinct advantage outside going into the game, their guards' game shape wasn't as good as ours, and their inside players looked good. I'd named a lineup with three guards, all with NT standard OD and their starting SF tonight was a PF (yes I'm aware NT PFs can be good SFs before anyone states the obvious) so again, it looked in our favour. They even tried to predict our tactics and got it half wrong.

However, as seems to be a trend lately, the game didn't go as expected. It was tight throughout, similar to last week where we couldn't get ourselves a lead. Gascoigne couldn't seem to take advantage, Barker didn't shoot as I'd expect him to in run and gun and the Austrians played well throughout.

We gained a small edge in the third, which we managed to actually grow during the fourth. And in the end we managed a quite respectable scoreline.

Our PD isn't quite what I'd want. Obviously neither is the win/loss record but for now I'm more concerned with PD.

At least we're at home next week. The following week we're away to Slovenia, who tonight beat Poland at home. We'll need to play better then.

Congrats Gullstar Enterprise nice win!

Tonight seemed like a blast from the past. We ran up a big total, looked pretty solid throughout, overcame an injury to one of the world's best players, and a man considered past it top scored.

We got off to a fairly slow start, Luxembourg came out strong and led for most of the first quarter. We were just starting to get on top when Marshall collided with their SF (a man so hard even Mike Andrews's attempt to put him out of the game as revenge failed) and was taken off. That was a slight concern but it turned out the rest of the squad was good enough to cover for the missing star, and the second quarter turned out to be our best. Rudy Esposto deputised well for Marshall, though he did foul out later.

The whole team played well, there almost seemed to be a battle within the squad to be top scorer. In the end, our man from the nursing home, Alan Sharpling top scored with 23. What a performance from him. That 7 players scored in double figures shows what a good team performance it was. Plenty of assists from everyone too. PTB seemed to work well for us, giving us a much needed boost to our PD.

Production off the bench tonight was really good, especially Sharpling and Madelin. Good result and as you said, does give our PD a boost, good going mate.

Handy announcement from BB-Marin today, saying that the times of games will be different. Pity its too late for games played on monday. Good thing I don't need announcements to get my teamsheet in on time!

All Star week can be tricky minutes wise, especially if you're not in the cup, so inevitably there's some nerves when looking at the roster on the friday morning. Clearly there was no need for nerves. Not even one respectable! Well done to all the managers.

Hi all, I know there is a mentor form however, I would like help and advice from people in my country if in the long term I want to help train players for the u21/NT.

So just two question for in the long term training players for u21 and NT.

The pinned U21 form says Big Man Height - 6'8" or taller (taller is better) 18yo min. - Superstar Potential (8); IS+ID+RB>14 21yo min. - 13IS, 13ID, 13RB.

For this to happen I am thinking that You need a 18yr old or a great 19yrs. However, 19yr old's have less time training time. So if you have a 18yr old. Is it best to train one year ID, then second year IS and then third year RB? or would you level each one up a couple and then move on to the next one etc..

However, PG.
Height - Up to 6'4" 18yo min. - Perennial Allstar Potential (7); OD+HA+PA>14; 30 Guard Skills
21yo min. - 14OD, 13PA, 65 Guard Skills

when you are wanting to train a PG If you trained OD and then PA does the JS and JR need to be high?

Thanks for your help.

I knew going in this was going to be tough, but I didn't realise how tough. As I said on friday, we had very good game shape today, with only one possible starter missing, but what we didn't have was HCA and enthusiasm. We've had a somewhat difficult schedule and have had to normal more than I would have liked and so we went in today with a bit of a disadvantage. My hope was Slovenia wouldn't normal, but it was a fairly slim hope, I didn't really expect them to take this game for granted, and sure enough, they didn't.

Both teams used the obvious LI and predicted inside tactics so no gain there. I'd picked the inside players with best inside defence who were in the best shape in the hope of restricting Slovenia's inside shooting. This did not work. From the way it appeared throughout the game their OD always looked better than ours. This is borne out in the number of assists for both teams, in which they always had about twice ours.

We actually were in the game at half time. In fact, we'd been getting closer throughout the first half after a poor start, and we had a lot of hope at the half. Then, an utter collapse in the second half led to probably our worst defeat in quite a while.

All in all pretty dreadful stuff. In hindsight, it would have been better to have taken it easy in the earlier games we lost, but without a crystal ball, and feeling we would have done better in those games than we actually did, I decided to go for it. I still think that was the right thing to do, but I did it and I accept the consequences.

At least that was our last away game until the next round, and we finish off with a home game next monday against Pakistan.

Sorry for dealing with the game report first, I wanted to get it out of the way.

For this to happen I am thinking that You need a 18yr old or a great 19yrs. However, 19yr old's have less time training time. So if you have a 18yr old. Is it best to train one year ID, then second year IS and then third year RB? or would you level each one up a couple and then move on to the next one etc..

To answer very simply, in your words I'd level each one up, then move on to the next. However, its more complicated than that. For a start, I'd want an inside player to have SB as well as the other three skills. And at both u21 and NT levels players need more than just those primary skills. All players should have DR which should be at least close to the highest primary skills. Also, all players should have secondary skills. For bigs that's the guard skills, and vice versa.

If that seems vague, its because its difficult to give a more specific answer as it depends very much on the player's starting skills.

You are absolutely right that if you're talking about a 19yo he would need to be great compared to the 18yo.

However, PG.
Height - Up to 6'4" 18yo min. - Perennial Allstar Potential (7); OD+HA+PA>14; 30 Guard Skills
21yo min. - 14OD, 13PA, 65 Guard Skills

when you are wanting to train a PG If you trained OD and then PA does the JS and JR need to be high?

Again this can depend on the situation. For the NT certainly he'd need JS and JR. Personally as NT manager I'd accept a player with better PA if his JS and JR were lower but not everyone would. For the u21s it probably depends on the manager's taste too, but always given similar OD/PA, then the coach will always select the better shooter.

As I said above, guards with inside skills are also more likely to make the squad than those without.

This was honestly a brutal test playing against Slovenia when there GS was good and they had an advantage with enthusiasm and HCA. I don't think you could have done anymore than what you did to restrict a very strong national side. Lets just hope we make it into the top 32 and progress through to the next round despite a tough draw being expected if so.