There are loads of options to customise your Game with TheBench™.
Up front there are two main choices you can make:
- Default League Templates: Use an existing League Template into which you will create your competition
- Custom League: Create your own League into which you can create as many competitions as you like, all using the same settings/rules.
You can think of the League as the top of the hierarchy where you would define field positions, scoring rules and other League level settings. If you have created a Competition using a default League Template, these settings cannot be change. You must create your own League to modify these settings. Contact us if you created a competition using a default League template and want to upgrade to your own custom League. Keep in mind that a custom League make have additional costs, depending on the Code.
League Level Settings:
Specifically, the following settings are defined at the League Level. They can be modified from the League page. If you don’t have a visible League page, you have probably created a Competition with a default League template and so don’t have access to these settings:
- League Name/Description: Name/Description for your League, use whatever you want
- Registration Code: Create a private Code for you League. Users will need this this code to create a Competition within your League. This will allow you to limit who registers with your League, ie. only those for who you distribute your private code to. Leave to field blank if you don’t want to limit others creating a Competition with you League rules.
- Squad Change Limit*: Sets the maximum number of times a coach can make changes to their Squad throughout the season (ie. after the draft). You can also choose to make this parameter modifiable at a competition level. You would block this at a Competition level if you want all competitions to be evenly matched.
- Default Squad Size*: Defines the default Squad (number of Players listed by a Club) size for Competitions in this League.
- Finals Series Enabled*: If checked, each Competition will run a finals series in the last four weeks of the season with the top Clubs in the ladder playing off for the premiereship. If unchecked, no finals series will be run, the Champion will be the Club at the top of the ladder.
- Enable Long Term Injury/Retired: If checked, each Competition can declare a Player as having a Long Term Injury or Retired and so will allow a free delisting, without effecting the squad change count.
- Enable Trading: If checked, Clubs within a Competition can freely Trade Players with one-another.
- Salary Cap*: Only applicable for Salary Cap Leagues. Sets the actual Salary Cap value, ie. the budget each Club has to draft their players.
Note: Properties marked with * are only applied to new Competitions, existing Competitions will remain unchanged.
A Custom League also lets you modify each of the Position on the field with the following settings:
- Add/Remove Position: Add a new or delete an existing position.
- Priority: Sets position order. Used for automated picks, ie. the computer coach will pick a team in this order.
- Label: The label as shown for the position on the Coaches Box page
- Abbreviation: An appriviation for the position. This is used in the statistics tables to indicate a given position.
- Scoring Expression: This is an expression that defines the way a given positions score is calculated. Each statistics point is defined by a name starting with a dollar sign, Basic mathematic operators can be used inluding +-/*. eg. $goals + $behinds.
- Field Position: These values define the placement of the given Position on the field, as seen on the Coaches Box page. The values are in pixels, measured from the top-left of the field.
- Bench: Check this option for the position to be an emergency position which will rotate with another field position if a picked player doesn’t play.
- Report: Check this box to show the score for this position in statistics table on Coaches Box page. If you have multiple positions with the same Scoring expression, only one of the positions need to have this option ticked – otherwise the data is unnessesarily duplicated and makes the statistics tables too busy.
- Suggest: Check to use this position to provide player suggestions options for this position. If you have multiple positions with the same Scoring expression, only one of the positions need to have this option ticked.
Competition Level Settings:
Your Competition is the next level. If you have created a custom League, you can create as many Competitions as you like using your League settings. These settings can be modified from the Competition page.
- Competition Name: Give your competition a Name
- Maximum Clubs: Limit the number of clubs that can sign up
- Squad Size: If this option is enabled at the League Level, set the side of each Clubs squad.
- Squad Changes: If enabled at the League Level, set the maximum number of changes a Coach can make to their squad during the season
- Last Trade Round: Limit the Trade window
- Last Squad Change Round: Limit the window in which a Coach can change their squad. This can be used to limit Coaches dropping players late in the season for the benefit of Coaches who a going through to the finals.
Hey there,
Was just surfing the net looking for something like this. It seems almost perfect, and I am actually a little excited about it. My friends and I run a yearly competition using the 3F, 4M, 1R, 1T plus interchange setup. However, this is a keeper competition. By this I mean once you select a player he is yours for life, until he retires or you trade/delist him. Draft choices are also tradeable.
I was curious as to whether there is a “keeper” league/competition setting. I’ve had a look over but couldn’t see anything that stood out. So apologies if it’s there and I’ve missed it.
Regards,
Toby
Hey Toby, the short answer is yes, we do support a keeper style league. The site give you the option at the end of the season to keep the squads or blow them away and start fresh for the next season.
We have a bunch of leagues using the site this way now.
Cheers
Ben
Hey Toby,
The short answer is yes, we do support a keeper style comp. At the start of the season the site gives you options to reset for new season with an option to either blow away you squads for a fresh start or to leave the squads in place for a keeper comp.
Hope this helps.
Ben
Hey Toby,
The short answer is yes, we do support a keeper style comp. At the start of the season the site gives you options to reset for new season with an option to either blow away you squads for a fresh start or to leave the squads in place for a keeper comp.
Hope this helps.
Ben
We have a ten team “keeper” league that started in 2005. We have 38 players each with 22 playing each week plus emergencies. We do not have rules around positions so you could have a squad of 38 mids. Our scoring is based on the AFL dream team scoring. We have no salary cap. Can we use this website to manage our comp? If so, how because I cannot find it. Thank you, much appreciated
Adam,
I sounds like TheBench is perfect for your Comp.
Just sign up and go to the “Profile” tab. Click “Create New League” to create your own customised League. Since you don’t want Position restrictions (good move by the way, this is more realistic… you are the coach,why can’t you play Jonathan Brown in the back-line!) you should choose the “TheBench Classic” template for your League. Fill in the form and click “Save”.
Now your League is created, Click on the “Manage Leagues” menu item and choose your new league to edit. On the left menu again, choose “Position Setup”. Here you can add as many or few positions as you want and for each position, you can choose the scoring rules (dream team style if you want!).
Once your League is created, you can now create as many Competitions in this League as your like (probably just one to start with) and then add your 10 Clubs to the Competition… and you are away.
You can skip the draft if you want (click start and then click the skip option).
Hope this helps
Ben
Thank you Ben
Very helpful
In our competition we have 22 players plus 3 emergencies from our 38 man squad. The emergencies play should any of the named 22 not get on the field (if they play and score zero they are included). We need to order emergencies in our order of preference and they play in this order. Does this work on The Bench?
Thanks
Hey Adam, I’ll send you and email offline on a couple of things i have noticed with your League.
The Bench supports two types of “off-field” positions.
“Bench” type: a backup player that will be automatically rotated with a Field player that does not play. Positions will be rotated in priority the order. If a player does play (ie. is part of the starting line-up) but does not score any points they will not be rotated.
“Emergency” type: a backup player that will automatically be rotated with a Field player if the Emergency player scores more than a given position. The lowest scoring field position will be rotated.
You can check which type your League uses by going to the Profile page, clicking the edit icon next to your League and clicking the “Position Setup” link on the left.
Cheers
Ben
Ben, I can’t seem to edit the Hall Of Fame section anymore, even though I’m the competition manager. Am I missing a checkbox somewhere?
Pete,
You were not missing something. We have hardened up the security this year and tightened it up too hard on this one. It is patched now.
Ben