The motto of the Handy Prem is/was 'where All Whites are made". And to a reasonable extent it was doing that. The Eastern Suburbs title winning side of a few years back being one strong example.
And if not producing AWs then a steady stream of guys, getting scouted and being signed by overseas clubs. Joel Stevens went to Sweden from Southern. Yipe he'd already been to Sweden once before, and prior to that with Weenix/TW.
But fact is he was playing National League for a franchise based in Dunedin, and from there got picked up by a pro club in Scandinavia. So he's an example for Otago/Southland footballers that if they stayed local for their national league football (Southern United), they could end up overseas. Erik Panzer is another guy that from Southern, has got a few overseas 'pro' gigs.
As GM says the chances of a Southern League side progressing to the end of season playoffs, past all the Mainland League sides looks slim at the moment. Will a young player be noticed playing in the obscure, lower quality Southern League. Unlikely. Sure is a high chance he would have gone to ChCh, Wellington or Auckland anyway (if just for his winter football) - but now that's 100% given, I reckon.
Of course Southern United, ain't in this year's Handy Prem. Would they have managed to survive if not for Covid, I don't know. Without a forensic look over their financials no one can 100% say for sure. For awhile there, their model of having a few overseas players (Irish) in as regional football development officers, plus playing for Southern in the Handy Prem looked reasonable. From what I'd read they really lifted the amount & quality of kids coaching, in the Southern region. Maybe I missed something but I'd never heard reports of financial problems down there until Covid.
And yes you can agrue until you are blue in the face, that technically the National League starts in March. But apart from a few NZF officials is anyone else, really going to think like that. When you are just playing other Northern, Central, Mainland or Southern clubs through the colder months as per every other winter season.
Anyway NZF have made their decision, let see what happens.
The national league starting in March and now consisting of winter clubs – proper clubs with teams right down through the age groups – is a massive systemic change. Not a technicality.
Yes – the national championship phase will have some more heft behind it (I expect we'll see wall-to-wall live streaming for that part of it, as has been the case this summer) and will be the part aimed at the more casual football fan and playing in it will no doubt help give some exposure, but I can't see not playing in it stopping truly talented players.
Matt Conroy, Matt Garbett, Oscar Obel-Hall, and Marko Stamenic are four current U-20 players off the top of my head who have managed to get overseas deals while barely playing in the existing national league (ie on the back of what they were doing in winter leagues). If they're talented and can show it, they will be noticed.
It's about the environments clubs create and this new format empowers them all to put their best foot forward, rather than having them do the work from March to September and someone else do it for the other half of the year.
There is no doubt a Northern > Central > Southern (and within Southern, Mainland > South) hierarchy exists and that promising players who are able to will seek to move up it, but what this change does is make it clear where everyone stands (what I've referred to previously here as a level playing field) and opens up more pathways.
Instead of there being 11 starting places, five bench places, and seven squad places in Canterbury and in Otago – as is the case with the existing setup, Canterbury United, and Southern United, making time for youngsters very hard to come by – there are now 88 and 40 in Canterbury and 88 and 40 in Otago.
If you're in Canterbury or Otago and want to have a football career, you're going to have to move at some point, but this should mean talented high-school age players stay there, playing or being around first-team football, at that age (not that there are a hell of a lot of them moving, but there has been quite a Canterbury > Wellington Phoenix Football Academy pathway evident the past couple of years – an ideal outcome of these changes would be that that kind of thing (going from playing MPL/SL to playing Cap Prem/Cap 1/Cap 3) stops, but it takes two to tango...)