WXV: Moscow Spetsnaz

[Jukes]

Contents
History, Awards, Sponsors
Coaching Staff, Leadership Group, Guernseys
Team List
Best XV, Reserves, Fixtures and Results
Reserves, Team Song
Membership Campaign
Mid-Season Review Part 1
Mid-Season Review Part 2

History

Moscow is the 6th largest city proper in the World, and boasts a population of over 11.5 million people. The city is a major political, economic, cultural and scientific center in Russia and on the continent of Eurpope. Based on Forbes 2011, Moscow has the largest community of billionaires in the world. Moscow is the northernmost megacity on Earth, the second most populous city in Europe.


Moscow was selected to be one of the foundation teams in the WXV competition. The general managers and marketing team decided that the team would be known as the Moscow Spetsnaz. Spetsnaz (in Russian: спецназ) is an umbrella term for any special forces in Russian, literally "special purpose forces". meow meow was appointed as the senior coach of Moscow ahead of it's inaugural season. Prior to the second season, he was replaced by Jukes, leaving his position as Director of Football and soon-to-be co-coach at Pacific Islanders. Toga was quickly appointed Senior Assistant Coach, with Adamant and Football Factory taking the role as Assistant Coaches. Toga left following round 7 to become the co-coach at Beijing. He was replaced by Torpedo10, who left New Dehli to become senior assistant coach and co-coach* at Moscow.

In its first season, the Spetsnaz won 10 games and lost 7 to finish 7th and achieve a spot in the finals. After a large elimination final victory away at Beijing, Moscow fell to eventual premiers Mexico City in the semi-final despite a brave effort.

The second season was more exciting, joyful and heartbreaking than the first, under a completely new management team. The Spetsnaz won 2 of it's first 4, highlighted by victories over Cairo and Buenos Aires, then went on a 9 game winning streak, including a win away at Mexico City, the only team to beat the Suns all season. Unfortunately, this streak ended with back to back losses. The Spetsnaz won their two last home and away matches in New Dehli and Tokyo, but disappointingly crashed out of the finals in straight sets, unlucky against Buenos Aires then terrible against the luckiest team in the world, Berlin.

After beating the reigning premiers Sao Paulo in round 2 of 2014, signs looked good. As always, the team went to shower and lost the next three, one being a rigged loss to London. The team rebounded to win another Peace Cup and another couple of good games, then went down to eventual premiers Dublin despite playing very well. A 59 point victory over New Delhi, 147 to 88, was a season highlight. But as injuries mounted the Spetsnaz lost some form, including another rigged loss to Cape Town, although they did get redemption over Berlin in the final round by 4 points. Finishing 6th, it hurts to say it would've been 4th without the two rigged losses, the Spetsnaz defeated Toronto by a point (again) in the elimination final, although as always hit the absolute shower in the semi final due to having every player injured and were eliminated.

Best and Fairest Winner- the Yuri Gagarin Medal
Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) was a Soviet cosmonaut and pilot. He became the first person to journey into outer space in 1961. The medal will be awarded through a 5-4-3-2-1 system based on the best players for the team in each round, with 7-6-5-4-3-2-1 during finals and state of origin.
2012 - Dayne Beams
2013 - Ryan Griffen
2014 - Callan Ward
2015 - Robbie Gray
2016 - Sam Docherty
2017 - Sam Docherty

Best Clubman- the Gazprom Trophy
Gazprom is the secondary sponsor of the Spetsnaz, as detailed below. Each week a player who has performed well enough for the coaches to take notice but did not receive a best and fairest vote will receive one point; in special occasions 2 players can receive a point in the same round. The player with the most points at the end of the season will take home the trophy; the primary tiebreaker is best and fairest votes, while the secondary tiebreaker is overall points scored.
2013 - Tyrone Vickery and Leigh Adams
2014 - Steven May
2015 - Ryan Bastinac

Coaches Award
2013 - Robert Murphy and Nat Fyfe
2014 - Lynden Dunn and Dyson Heppell
2015 - David Armitage
2016 - Steven May
2017 - Jack Sinclair

Smirnoff was named as the major sponsor. The Smirnoff brand began with a vodka distillery founded in Moscow by Pyotr Arsenievich Smirnov in the 1860s and is now distributed in 130 countries worldwide. The company was sold for $1.4 billion dollars in 1982 (over $4.4 billion in 2013 money taking into account inflation) and is now owned by Diageo, a British company. The sponsorship will pay the Spetsnaz $30million per year over 4 seasons, with a bonus of $100,000 for every game won over the same time period. Moscow will wear the Smirnoff logo on the front of their guernsey.

Gazprom was named as the secondary sponsor. Gazprom is the largest extractor of natural gas in the world and the largest Russian company. Founded in 1989, the company has a revenue of $158 billion per year. Gazprom also own and sponsor football/soccer team Zenit St Petersburg, winner of the 2008 UEFA cup, and sponsor German side Schalke 04 and Serbian club Red Star Belgrade, in addition to being the official global energy partner of the 2012 Champions League winners Chelsea. The sponsorship will pay the Spetsnaz $5million per year over 6 seasons, with a bonus of $1million for every finals game played. Moscow will wear the Gazprom logo on the back of their guernsey.

Other Assorted Sponsors
ZeptoLab
Skolkovo Foundation
Metalloinvest
Sberbank
Sistema JSFC
Siberia Airlines


The team motto's are There's no traffic on the extra mile and Fifteen players, one heartbeat

[Jukes]

Coaching Staff and Board

Co-Coaches: Jukes and Torpedo10
Owner: Roman Abramovich
Number One Ticket Holder: Alexander Ovechkin

Leadership Group

Captain: Tyler Sonsie
Leadership Group: Nick Daicos, Luke Parker, Josh Kelly, Jack Ziebell

[Jukes]

Stadium

Luzhniki Stadium
The Grand Sports Arena of the Luzhniki Olympic Complex is the largest sporting stadium in Russia, with a current capacity of 120,001, after being 89,318 when the Spetsnaz moved in, all covered. Built on the banks of the Moskva River, it was opened in 1956 and has hosted numerous major events such as the 1980 Summer Olympics, the 1957 Ice Hockey World Championships, the 2008 UEFA Champions League Final between Manchester United and Chelsea, and will host the 2018 World Cup Final. The stadium holds a five-star rating by UEFA.

[Jukes]

Team List

1. Nick Daicos (M)
2. Sam Draper (R)
3. James Worpel (M)
4. Kysaiah Pickett (F)
5. Dan Houston (D)
6. Adam Treloar (M/F)
7. Jack Ziebell (D)
8. Tom Fullarton (F)
9. Nick Blakey (D)
10. Sam Berry (F)
11. Tom Jonas (D)
12. Chayce Jones (D)
13. Nik Cox (M)
14. Tyler Sonsie (M)
15. Sam Docherty (D)
16. Jack Carroll (M)
17. Callum Brown (F)
18. Mac Andrew (R)
19. Fraser Rosman (M)
20. Connor Rozee (F)
21. Errol Gulden (F)
22. Josh Kelly (M)
23. Harrison Jones (F)
24. Nick Bryan (R)
25. Alex Pearce (D)
26. Luke Parker (M)
27. Heath Chapman (D)
28. Mitchell Knevitt (M)
29. Jake Aarts (F)
30. Thomson Dow (M/F)
31. Zach Reid (D)
32. Miles Bergman (M)
33. Campbell Chesser (D/M)
34. Blake Coleman (F)
35. Josh Honey (F)
36. Dylan Moore (F)
37. Brandon Starcevich (D)
38. Noah Cumberland (M/F)
39. Jason Johannisen (F)
40. Matthew Parker (F)
41. Bailey Banfield (F)
42. Tom Brown (D)
43. Ned Long (M/F)
44. Oscar McDonald (F)
45. Patrick Naish (M)

Depth Chart
D: Jack Ziebell, Sam Docherty, Dan Houston, Tom Jonas, Heath Chapman, Chayce Jones, Campbell Chesser (MID), Nick Blakey, Tom Brown, Brandon Starcevich, Zach Reid, Alex Pearce

M: Josh Kelly, Luke Parker, Adam Treloar (FWD), Nick Daicos, Tyler Sonsie, James Worpel, Miles Bergman, Nik Cox, Mitchell Knevitt, Jack Carroll, Fraser Rosman, Thomson Dow (FWD), Ned Long (FWD), Patrick Naish

R: Sam Draper, Nick Bryan, Mac Andrew

F: Errol Gulden, Connor Rozee, Dylan Moore, Kysaiah Pickett, Josh Honey, Harrison Jones, Sam Berry, Callum Brown, Jake Aarts, Bailey Banfield, Thomas Fullarton, Noah Cumberland (MID), Blake Coleman, Oscar McDonald, Jason Johannisen

Best XV
D: Ziebell, Docherty, Houston, Jonas
M: Kelly, Parker, Daicos, Worpel
R: Draper
F: Treloar, Gulden, Rozee, Moore
U: Bergman, Sonsie
Emg: Pickett, Honey, Cox, Johannisen

[Jukes]

Membership/Advertising Campaign

[CrowsFan]

Only one heartbeat between 15 players sounds like a recipe for fatigue. Can't pump enough blood around all 15 of them to keep them running for all four quarters :P

In saying that however the poster looks awesome :)

[Maca24]

I wish I was good at designing stuff :( Looks sick Jukesy!

[CrowsFan]

I wish I was good at designing stuff :( Looks sick Jukesy!

Same. I can do the extreme basic stuff, but anything after that I have no clue haha!

[Purple 77]

That is awesome Jukes, really like the slogan!

Second to only the slogan of Cairo for me, makes me laugh even now  ;D

"Cutting" the players out must have been time consuming, great job  8)

[Jukes]

I came up with the slogan, but really all credit for the poster must go to Toga. He's a photoshopping wizard :3

[Toga]

Glad you think it looks good everyone! :)

I'm happy to do something like this for other coaches as well, just let me know if you want something done by PM and I'll try get around to it!

[Toga]

[Toga]

Introducing Moscow's new International Alliances:

[ossie85]

Brilliant stuff

[Jukes]

Round 1 Review

Moscow Spetsnaz       v       Cairo Sands       Luzhniki Stadium, Moscow

To kick off the 2013 WXV season, the mighty Moscow Spetsnaz took on the Cairo Sands in front of almost 90,000 fans starved of footy during the off-season. With co-captain and star player Nic Naitanui missing with a groin injury, Shane Tuck was elected sole captain for the week.

TEAM LIST
D: Shaw Clarke, Fletcher, Murphy, Frawley
M: Tuck (C), Fyfe (VC), Griffen, Ward
R: Sinclair Walters
F: Martin, Higgins, Monfries, Adams
Int: Treloar, Darling

Emg: Walters, Hoskin-Elliot, Clarke.

SPETSNAZ SCORES
D: Clarke 53, Fletcher 85, Murphy 106, Frawley 64
M: Tuck 107x2, Fyfe 96, Griffen 138, Ward 89
R: Walters 90
F: Martin 85, Higgins 97, Monfries 112, Adams 48
Int: Treloar 113, Darling 75

FINAL SCORE
Moscow Spetsnaz (22.15.147) defeated Cairo Sands (19.17.131)

Best and Fairest Voting
5. Ryan Griffen
4. Adam Treloar
3. Angus Monfries
2. Shane Tuck
1. Robert Murphy

Best Clubman Round 1
Charlie Dixon

Reserves
Siberian Wolves (15.8.98) lost to Alexandria Hieroglyphics (23.16.154)