Warrior General Games

Ok, in the pre-season doldrums, let's take a look at the ever maligned Alpha conference, who always seem to be the underdogs.

It seems in the Oceania A leagues, at least in OA-3, and OAA -2, the Alpha conference is usually the underdogs in seasons past. But in season 9 for the AA-2, the Alpha conference is looking strong, and looks to be a competitive conference. Will they hold up to the Zeta conference is a question that won't be answered anytime soon, but that's way on down the road.....

Originally posted by
edit: I'm just giving my opinion based on the order that each team is listed in the game ranking. I never said I was ranking teams anyways, so please "read' what is actually being posted...geesh!

The pre season #1 Brisbane Barbarians, look impressive on paper, and will be a tough team to beat! But even if they look good on paper, just turn a few pages, and things start to get very thin concerning their depth...paper thin. Depth is crucial, and unless the Barbarians do some recruiting, the only time they will be at the top is during the pre-season!

Next up is #2..The Poseidon Tridents...a solid team from the OA-3 Alpha conference. This is a well run team, with solid and deep depth. The only thing this team lacks is some sharp players, top notch. Until this team get's some hotshot high level players, they will struggle.

#3...the Solomon Island Savages......
These guys are Zeta conference veterans, since season 4, and somehow they get moved to Alpha this season. This team has it all, high level players with solid depth at most positions, and also an experienced coaching staff.

#4... The Growing Buds

I don't know much about these guys, but they have an impressive record, and an impressive roster. Hard to predict, but the Buds will be an interesting team to watch blossom into a solid football team.

#5 Auckland Flames

Another solid team that moved up from OA-3 alpha. But Auckland...your chemistry is at 100 across the board, meaning you have had no personnel changes. You just moved "up"....not "down", and your competition has gotten even better. You are going to need much better talent if you want to light "any" fires this season!!!!

#6 Cook Island Power Rangers

Alpha conference champs from OA-3. This team did nothing but continue to get better through season 8, and making a run for the championship with a disappointing yet solid performance as an underdog, against the AREC in the title game. Looks like there have been some changes in the Power Ranger Roster based on chemistry this off season. Wether for good or bad remains to be seen, but this team is still solid, and has tons of talent!

# 7 Darwin Hardline

Wow! This team has come to play!!!!!

Another solid team from the O-A-3 Alpha conference, that didn't miss by much making it to the Championship game.
But from the looks of things, Darwin doesn't plan to make it close in season 9, and they are doing a little team re-structuring, bringing in some big dogs!!

Darwin has a top notch starting lineup to compete in this conference, and league, and their depth is looking solid also. They will have some recovering to do early in the season with the hit they have taken to their chemistry, but that will recover by the end of the season. I'm liking these guys!

#8 Brisbane Devilcocks

Yep...too many Brisbanes in this league!

This is another stout team from just looking at the roster and record!! Very good talent, although thin at a few positions...... that could be easy to exploit. But with their record, I wouldn't underestimate them.


I'm gonna stop with that, even though there are more teams in this conference that could be very competitive in this conference.



Even though the Alpha conference is always hard to predict, I'll go out on a limb, and pick my favorites. First thing I'll predict is that this will be a great season, and should be very competitive for most teams in both conferences.
I've got to go with the Solomon Island Savages as my pre-season favorite to win the Alpha, although I think the Darwin Hardliners could easily prove me wrong.....

Good luck to all of the Alpha conference for season 9!!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGnMlWyLONo&feature=related

Tridents over the Savages? Highly unlikely.

Originally posted by firehazard
Tridents over the Savages? Highly unlikely.

I was just going down the list based on their rankings in the lineup...thought you would have figured that out....

I'm so confused. What does your numbering above mean then? Nothing?

btw- lots of moved up teams into alpha didn't do any roster improvements. I could see this being a pretty weak season for them.

Fine! Edit your message while I'm composing mine. Bastard.

Originally posted by firehazard
Fine! Edit your message while I'm composing mine. Bastard.

Muuuuuwahaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!

Easter Island or Guam have a whole lot of talent, Bay City and Vanuatu were solid playoff contenders at this level last season. Thanks for the vote of confidence, but there are a lot of good teams in the mix in Alpha... I worry when I look at Guam's roster and see that they came last in AAA#1 last season.

Oh wow, I didn't know the gamecocks got moved down.

Hopefully Bort holds true to his word and completely restructures the leagues in the next offseason. It'll prevent stupid move ups/downs like the Gamecocks and Norsemen.

Originally posted by firehazard
Oh wow, I didn't know the gamecocks got moved down.

Hopefully Bort holds true to his word and completely restructures the leagues in the next offseason. It'll prevent stupid move ups/downs like the Gamecocks and Norsemen.

Yeah man back down here in AA. We made a run to the conference championship here in season 7 and got moved up before we really should have. Then we had a good group of guys so I didn't want to recruit in a bunch of new blood and we took our hits last season and got relegated back down to AA.

We will be in full force this season though and ready to battle.

Owner of the Barbarians here, just wanted to say that I appreciate the write-up TideSpot. It's always nice to see what everyone thinks of everyone else.

Auckland has a great team of agents, and we won't be adding anybody unless somebody leaves. I think we added 1 guy this offseason. If that means we take our lumps this season, so be it. I wouldn't be surprised if we pulled some upsets this season though.

Nice recap...

And yeah, we (the Devilcocks) are thin at some places. Working to fix that....

Originally posted by firehazard
Hopefully Bort holds true to his word and completely restructures the leagues in the next offseason. It'll prevent stupid move ups/downs like the Gamecocks and Norsemen.

-Whoa! As a member of the Norseman, I'd like to let you know who we are, and what we're all about, before you go jumping into the deep end, making crazy statements, and what have you. We just got bumped up from OA-4 after 4 seasons of falling short of the big game. But that doesn't mean we don't belong here. I'm sure you're looking at our roster and seeing that we're lacking the high level players, and the depth that's needed behind it, but that's something that just happened during this off season. .Many of us, including our GM, live in, and around the Fargo area in ND and MN. We got hit by the highest river levels in recorded history and basically the entire region shut down to help out with sandbagging efforts. Normally, we have some of the highest level players in our league with great build, lower level players for depth. But because our GM lost his internet access for quite some time, we really missed out on signing new higher level players needed to compete in this new league, and resigning key players from seasons past. We lost a ton of our team because they signed with other teams during this uncertain time. As things get back to normal in real life, so will things on GLB. For the past 4 seasons, we have consistently led the league (not just conference) in many stats. We have consistently been competitive. And teams would never look to the schedule, see The Norseman, and think it was going to be an easy week. We haven't even played one pre-season game so I'd wait a couple weeks before judging the team you see. I don't think anyone should be bumped up a level, and think they're going deep in the playoffs. That said, I'll let our play on the field do the rest of my talking...

Good write-up Tide. Thanks.

Originally posted by gtown10s
Originally posted by firehazard

Oh wow, I didn't know the gamecocks got moved down.

Hopefully Bort holds true to his word and completely restructures the leagues in the next offseason. It'll prevent stupid move ups/downs like the Gamecocks and Norsemen.

Yeah man back down here in AA. We made a run to the conference championship here in season 7 and got moved up before we really should have. Then we had a good group of guys so I didn't want to recruit in a bunch of new blood and we took our hits last season and got relegated back down to AA.

We will be in full force this season though and ready to battle.

Oh well, I kind of like being listed at the bottom of the pack. I guess the cats out of the bag that we are better than our previous season record shows.