That's quite an early leak it being only Juily & the clubs not due to be announced until September.
Disappointing for Mainland football fans. I hope this means NZF are doing some work behind the scenes to try get them an A League club. Pragnell wants one.
If those hubs are correct, then Sth Melbourne must be the Aussie club accepted.
Sounds like only them and Sunshine Coast were in the race.
Going to be interesting how this all plays out for Auckland and the Nix. Surely they can't just be their current young reserve teams that play National League. They won't be competitive enough, against the Island teams that could effectively be de facto National teams. Gonna need to sign some older more veteran players from somewhere. A few from ACFC for example with lots of experience playing in toasty Honiara, Suva and Port Moresby??
Disappointing for Mainland football fans. I hope this means NZF are doing some work behind the scenes to try get them an A League club. Pragnell wants one.
If those hubs are correct, then Sth Melbourne must be the Aussie club accepted.
Sounds like only them and Sunshine Coast were in the race.
Going to be interesting how this all plays out for Auckland and the Nix. Surely they can't just be their current young reserve teams that play National League. They won't be competitive enough, against the Island teams that could effectively be de facto National teams. Gonna need to sign some older more veteran players from somewhere. A few from ACFC for example with lots of experience playing in toasty Honiara, Suva and Port Moresby??
Would assume a lot of U21-23's will be getting hoovered up from the National League clubs. There is no where near enough depth at either Auckland or Wellington club to be able to field a squad in that competition as it stands at the moment.
Will be good for the likes of Lachlan Candy, Luke Flowerdew, Daniel Makowem, Fergus Gillion, Ryan Watson and the such who may find themselves elevated onto scholarship deals out of this. But they're going to have to think outside the box on how this is all going to work.