Compass Sport Cup Scoring System

[mharky]

4.2.7 - The winnner shall be the team with the highest points total (of 25 runners). Where clubs finish on equal points, positions will be determined by looking at the best scores of the 26th runner. Then if needed the next best and so on.

This rule should be changed. It favours larger clubs, BKO only had 26 runners today, SOC & HH 28.

If team score are level would it not make more sense, in any points system, to go on countback of highest scores (of your 25 scoring runners (and only if after all that it is equal, then the 26th runner))?

That is, number of 1st places, then 2nd places, then 3rd places etc.

Who would I need to contact to get this rule changed?

[tendon]

The format of the competition is designed to encourage maximum participation. If it's supposed to be an elitist competion, then change as suggested. However, if the competition is supposed to be inclusive, then the count-on is (imo) more appropriate than count-back.

[distracted]

This rule should be changed. It favours larger clubs, BKO only had 26 runners today, SOC & HH 28.

I thought the idea of having separate Cup and Trophy competitions was the way to ensure that this sort of thing didn't happen. The change between a club being 'large' and 'small' is 100 BOF 'members' - are you suggesting this cut-off is too low? Or maybe it was just the timing of it this year, being during the Easter holidays, that reduced numbers...

[mharky]

Tendon, I don't think that part of the scoring system in any way encourages participation (I think the enthusiasm of club captains to get strong teams is responsible for that). I believe the fact that every person scores, and thus able to push down the scores of others, makes the event inclusive.

Distracted, I wasn't suggesting anything abuot the cut-off between large & small clubs. It would obvisouly be very difficult to come up with some accurate way of defining a larger and small club. For example, today SOC and HH had 28 runners, BKO 26, but SARUm who are a "small" club had 39...

My point was that the current scoring system gives an advantage (if in the event that scores are tied) to a larger club. I hardly think that the change i suggest would make the event "elitist". I think it will just make the results (if it ever does get tied) represent which club is better, not bigger. It is the national club cup afterall.

[Barny of Blandford]

Markhy
Surely the answer is in your clubs hands
At our round at Wisley today four clubs including ourself had well over 50 runners each taking part
So for a club of your size it should be easy to turn out a large number??
We are not a very big club - our numbers are 103 - so over half turned up
Sarum (you said) had 39 - perhaps that says something about get up and go in that club
Perhaps that is what we all need to do
Whatever you do - do not reduce results to 25 only - otherwise clubs will then start to take 25 runners only and that is not what we want

[Paulo]

According to the results, SOC had 33 runners and HH had 36...

Not sure how the large club/small clubs are defined (total membership numbers?), but in the SE round today, 3 of the 8 clubs (DFOK, LOK & SAX) had less than 20 runners each. If a club cannot even field the required 25 then surely they would be better off in the small clubs competition. (although this is obviously due to participation numbers, as presumably these clubs have lots of 'non-active' members).

Going back to Mharky's point, it's probably not really that big an issue - how often have two clubs actually finished exactly level under this new scoring system? Ever? (Ok, SOC and TVOC were close today). However, I do think that in general the current rules do favour the bigger clubs, whether they were intended to or not - 25 runners to count is quite a lot for some clubs. Using the current scoring system but only say top 20 to count would be slightly more in favour of smaller clubs.

[mharky]

Bryan, this is not about my club's ability to field a team (we qualified after all), it is about the fact the the system clearly favours bigger clubs. You got 50% of your club out, well done. But if I got 50% of my (hypothetical) club that is 50% the size of yours then you have got an advantage over my just for being big. That's a bit unfair isn't it?

The scoring is 25 to count. It's only when tied that the 26th person counts.

Clubs take as many people as they can, regardless of the number of runners that score. You say that if it were 25 nto score, which it is, then teams would take 25. But your club of 103 took well over 50, when only 25 scored...

[mharky]

OK, so in reference to Paulo's superior counting skills, it appears that the countback system will only countback to people who would be able to score if the teams were larger. That is to say, the 7th scorer on the brown could not be used on conutback as it is only 6 per course. (Or whatever it is per course)

I did my counting using the countback sheet at the top of the resutls

[Paulo]

True, that would make it fairer if your 7th Brown scorer could count in a count-back.

In fact that's another point that has been raised a few times in the past - why exactly is there a limit on 6/4 per course? Why not have the current scoring system, but let your runners count from any course even if that means 10 on the Brown. Changing that rule WOULD be in favour of smaller clubs - as Mharky points out, SOC only had 28 eligible scorers out of their 33 as they have lots of Blue/Brown people but hardly any green/light green ones. If some of their 33 runners had been different age groups they would have had 33 potential scorers rather than 28.

The big clubs are generally strong across all age groups so this doesn't really affect them. Some smaller clubs might have quite a few members but because they have too many in one age class and not enough in others they are penalised. Is there any disadvantage in saying you can have as many count as you like on any class - I can only see this benefitting the smaller clubs.

[andy L]

Personally I think the rules should stay as they are.
They have been changed loads and loads of times (quantative) and its hard to figure out who/how many count and whatever.

For example, today at our round some people in our club thought that 15 ppl count and some thought 25 ppl count which is quite alarming considering the simplicity of this idea. [Of course i didnt have a clue as to how many counted either]

now time to watch united batter the frog's........

[CHS]

The number to score on each course is to encourage a spread of ages/classes in the wining clubs, the larger courses have a max of six whilst the samll classes have four.

Even if a club is large it doesn't necessarily mean that it fields a larger team and I see no problem in the large clubs for a team being penalised for not having 26/27 runners as you would hope that at least 30 had run to make allowances for mispunches/injuries/really poor runs.

[mharky]

OK, I am getting a nice "It's all about participation" "It's not about the elite" "Get as many people participating" vibe from people. So if teams are level, why not let them both go to the final, rather than try and work out who was actually better... if they get the same score I would say the were pretty equal.

[roadrunner]

Paulo said:

The big clubs are generally strong across all age groups so this doesn't really affect them.

Actually, that's not always the case. Looking at the results for BKO, for example, we're a large club but with virtually no runners in some age groups (M and W21).

[awk]

OK, I am getting a nice "It's all about participation" "It's not about the elite" "Get as many people participating" vibe from people. So if teams are level, why not let them both go to the final, rather than try and work out who was actually better... if they get the same score I would say the were pretty equal.

That's what happens in the qualifying rounds of the Yvette Baker. However, the same countback system is used to differentiate places in the final if necessary, and has mattered: in 2001 for instance OD beat WCH for the third place trophy on countback.

My response to the argument "it favours bigger clubs" is, so what (even if it does, which I would argue with)? It's about the best club in depth, and this follows that principle. Whether one club has got more members than another is not important, it's how many turnout on the day and in what depth. The concession to smaller clubs is in where the team cut off is - most of the bigger clubs can turn out a lot more than 25 (and personally, I'd get rid of the Trophy, and split the Cup into divisions based on club strength rather than size anyway).

[Adventure Racer]

Paulo said:

The big clubs are generally strong across all age groups so this doesn't really affect them.

Actually, that's not always the case. Looking at the results for BKO, for example, we're a large club but with virtually no runners in some age groups (M and W21).

In the context of numbers running on courses that's not necessarily relevant though, particularly if they have 35s and 40s who would run the longest courses anyway. For example HOC didn't have a single M21 running, but their top scoring course was Brown. It's when you don't have people eligible to run the shorter courses that you have a problem, as you can't run people down (unless of course, as is possible, I totally misunderstand the rules).