History for martyyn

We've got to stop giving any credence to the NAGT.

The football I've seen there in the last two years has been pretty poor and whilst there is the odd team trying to play football the focus for many is to obviously select the biggest boys who can kick the ball a fair distance.

I sat in on a coaches meeting (not last year but the one before) where the entire discussion was about winning being more important than development at that age. You couldn't select smaller, more skillful players because they just weren't strong enough to 'compete'. I thought I was in an English changing room back in the 80's.

The vast majority of Wellington's 'elite' players don't attend anyway so it's hardly representative.

It's the same with the Youth League. I've really enjoyed watching this the last two years, but there are teams willing to forgo the result in favour of player development and there are those with 11 guys all over 6'4.

So you might say Mainland does well, but we need to look deeper than just and handful of results.