Heard they had their 4 new to school plus a number of refugees, which is a loophole that one can use to bolster sides.
This is incorrect. They had 1 new to school player in their squad at nationals, a year 11 playing in midfield.
Not quite, there were a handful of boys that moved to NC this year. Its just that only one of them that moved were in the tournament squad. But there were at least two others that were playing First XI in 1st Div if I remember correctly, just weren't selected for Nationals. Its also not a major loophole, (as college found out) when one of their qualifying results (8-0 vs Marlborough) was overturned as they 'played more than two boys new to the school this year'.
Yeah but it's irrelevant how many played for them prior to nationals. Only one was in the squad at the tournament which is what I said.
If your looking at Nationals on its own then I guess it isn't hugely relevant, but this College side isn't just a tournament team. They play week in week out locally. This makes it fairly relevant as even though only one of these new boys was in the Nationals squad, they have had the option to look at, choose from and play these other new boys all year, giving the side depth and a bigger pool of players. The ones moving schools will have moved for the purpose of playing at Nationals, that is part of NC's pulling power it seems now. Also when these new boys moved schools, it would have given the current players competition and a reason to step up, which I know a number of them have had to do.
Also, in the qualifying games they played some of the other new boys, meaning that in the long run these boys did have an effect on the final Nationals squad/results. So it's pretty relevant.