It is totally unrealistic and unfair to expect a Football Manager type game, even though I am sure Alternative Soft are aiming to eventually expand to that level. Having said that, there are many things in Football Manager and its predecessor that work well and in my opinion would be worth copying.
Any of you who have spent any time on the editor for Football Manager will realise that everything imaginable has a rating. Players, coaches, physios, scouts, stadiums, youth facilities, youth potential for each club, youth potential for each country, game importance by country etc etc. In order to add unpredictability, inexperienced players and coaches often have a random potential rating.
What is great about all of this is that when playing Football Manager, I really feel that all the other computer controlled teams are battling and affected by the same ratings as me: They are also in a facilities and youth arms race, they are also constricted by the size of the game and quality of the youth in the country in question, despite their efforts to boost their own facilities. It feels like real life in that sense. At the moment, Rugby Union Team Manager hasn't captured this in my opinion. I have high hopes though, as the love for rugby is evident in the great game released last year.
Another thing. This has been mentioned before by several people, but I feel there needs to be more random elements when it comes to youth progression and indeed the quality of youth intake. All the facilities in the world shouldn't guarantee brilliant players and it should also be possible for a tiny club to unleash a legend! Players also decline quite predictably at the moment.
I wonder whether an average club with average coaches etc should yield improvements along the lines of:
Any attribute for a player under 24 has a 60% chance of increasing, 30% chance of staying the same, and 10% chance of decreasing each season.
Any attribute for a playeraged 24-28 has a 50% chance of increasing, 30% chance of staying the same, and 20% chance of decreasing each season.
Any attribute for a playeraged 28-32 has a 30% chance of increasing, 40% chance of staying the same, and 30% chance of decreasing each season.
Any attribute for a player over 32 has a 10% chance of increasing, 40% chance of staying the same, and 50% chance of decreasing each season.
Better or worse facilities could of course affect the increases / decreases slightly and mental, physical and technical attributes might behave differently from each other (e.g. mental attributes might have a greater chance of improving than physical attributes for old players). Anyway, that's just an idea. It might allow for a few players to never quite fulfill high potential as well as other players to be late bloomers and/or maintain their ability at the end of their careers. Of course, most players probably would statistically end up following some sort of shallow bell curve, but there would be room for much variation. In Football Manager, the variability of players and their development allows for unpredictability, resulting in good and bad surprises.
There are many other things that people have mentioned, but an improved editor would be great, as would the amalgamation of domestic teams which have a Super Rugby parent team, with that Super Rugby parent team (the players are basically the same in most cases after all e.g. Western Province and The Stormers). Licensing for the SH teams would be wicked, but of course, may not be possible or an area Alternative Soft wish to pursue.