You want your non-playing pros to have match time & fitness. Its been used as a path back from injury in the past. Only travel preventing it right now.
NL playoffs each year will be in a Sept-October time slot from memory.
As A League moves to a winter season next year, it will likely be March-September or similar.
And yes you want your fringe or returning injured players to get some football if not required for the first team squad, but from next year it will likely have to be CL.
Well a pro can’t play CL
Yeah, I was gonna say this. From memory there's a special dispensation for this in the soon to be dead Handy Prem format for the Phoenix reserves, but once the format's changed that becomes quite a different proposition, especially if they're playing as Lower Hutt?
This is probably part of the reason why it's Lower Hutt, then Wellington Phoenix reserves, not just 'Lower Hutt automatically qualifies for the National League Championship'.
The regulations (as they stood when first distributed at Christmas) seem to allow for the reserves to operate as they have done up to now when it comes to accessing first-team players.
Also, the A-League change of season is far from confirmed.