Reading that just reminded me that it'll be interesting to see what happens to all the '02 born players next year, when they no longer fulfil the U20 quota. Quite a few players would have to find new teams, which is a bit of a flaw in the system. If you look at City and Olympic, quite a few of their current big-minute U20s will no longer be eligible: Randall, Roubos, Halikias and then Lee, Lobo, Gillion. That means they, or other older players, will have to shipped out and replaced with '03s/'04s/'05s.
I have yet to come across a team that didn’t change out at least 2 players from season to season. Usually more than that.
How is this different?
And it doesn’t need to be the 20 yr olds that move on. I’d have Lobo in my side any day of the week. And I realise Colloty has another year yet, but even if he was 20, Melville wouldn’t let him go without a fight.
If Mirimar don’t want Randall’s 10 goals someone else will.
And the point here is, some of these lads may not have had the opportunity to show what they are worth with just 5 minutes at the end of games.
The quality youngsters won’t get ‘put out to pasture’, more likely as more young quality emerges the journeymen will.
There were also 20% more minutes given to U20s this year than last year, with big increases in '03 and '04 born players' minutes. Surprisingly '02 players went down on last year though. Every team would've fulfilled the new regulations as well. There's no real trend in giving U20s more/less minutes affecting the team's final position either; Suburbs finished 10th with the most, then Springs in 6th, Melville finished 4th and Birko 2nd. Also, 709 minutes, across four different players, were given to U17 WC eligible players this year.
