poor quality, lack of exposure and irrelevance
I am amazedballs that you are not intentionally describing the current NL, tbh.
I just don't see how splitting out players among more clubs strengthens it though.
What is the purpose of the NL? i don't believe we will have a pro league in NZ in my lifetime. Or probably my kids lifetime. If the strategic goal for NZ Football is game participation, and national team achievement, then don't we just want a NL that gets NZ eligible players into Pro Leagues?
Amateur league that encourages the playing of young 'uns seems like a good step. The tragics (I do include myself in this) will go anyway. Non-tragics aren't attracted by the current format.
But plenty of young ones are playing in the current format - Waitak had something like 7 or 8 players under 20 playing on Saturday. And the current format has been a stepping stone to professional football for number of guys over the last few seasons. So the plan is to run a worse competition to achieve the results the current one does?
Yeah, this is the bit I don't get. We've been steadily improving, year on year, with more recent European exports than I can remember in my lifetime, and we want to scrap everything? Premiership format can be improved, sure, but the way I see it - we may or may not bump youth development up a peg with the new system, we dunno yet, but every other aspect is clearly going to trend way down