Double post.
I guess the good news is that this is the last season where that will be a problem, right? Summer months will by and large be free under the "Champions League" model, allowing player to rest or play NPL as they see fit
This.
While I feel it was a mistake to not give the new system some clear air (it technically starts 48 hours after the ISPS Handa Men's Premiership final!) we've been operating in an overlapping, 12-month long environment for 17 years now and come the end of the 2021 season there will be a proper off-season for the first time since 2003. It's up to coaches and players to manage themselves during the 2021 season the same way they have for the past 17 years.
There will be about a month's break between the end of the regional premier leagues and the Chatham Cup and the start of the national championship phase too.
The only clubs with something truly significant at stake in 2021 (those fighting for the eight places in the South Island Football Championship, who will then occupy those places in 2022) will only have a handful (if that) of 2020-21 national league players anyway.
And chubbs, it's worth remembering Auckland and Hamilton clubs stopped playing at the start of August during the 2020 winter, so they had a long break before the 2020-21 national league. That leaves Miramar/Team Wellington as the only one that has really been pulling a long winter-summer-winter shift.