Mainland Premier League (Part 1)

Waimak will be an interesting one. They a young side playing them this year, a number from their PDL from a few years ago. They have quite  a large catchment too. Will need to strengthen I think before they will top Div 1 next year, however it will depend also on the makeup of Universities next year (how many leave after finishing degrees etc) and what sort of Chch Utd team comes down. University from this year would top Div 1 next year at this stage.

 Uni has a lot of young talent coming through, saw a few of their teams play and there is a large number of guys I'd say are under 20 - heard they're entering tsunami too?. Waimak given its size in the junior ranks should be going good.

Yer Uni were good this year, almost beat the mighty Coastal in the Chatham Cup. But can they sustain it year after year?  Are they an actual club? They do have a team in the under 19 Tsunami Tournament 

Will be interesting to see what comes out of this competitions review as to what will happen with Div 1 and MPL. 

There was another Competitions Review meeting at English Park last night. 

Anyone heard any outcomes? I think 'Youth' was to be a big part of the discussion.

As Vim also said, they need to keep hold of the players year after year like a 'normal' club would do (no disrespect to Uni). It would be hard to build a team for a year or 2 and then have players leaving as they have finished a 3 year degree and gone overseas for work to pay off student loans etc. I know Otago Uni a club, had older guys playing 1st team football who just weren't able to play in Uni games. Looking at how their other teams went this year not sure how much depth they got with results that didn't set world alight. Any whispers on what may happen with Div 1/MPL in review?

 when I read staying power I imagine Barry White

U22 Cup results? 

1v2: FCthingy beat Bays

3v4: Coastal beat Cashmere

Any better detail than that from anyone?

Uni teams will always have those kind of problems. You'd think there must be a way of managing that though? From the looks of the coach application on the mainland site they are going to get a ton of backing from the uni sport department next year.... Potential game changer perhaps? Doubt there's many (if any) clubs in Christchurch that could boast anything at all similar. Could make things interesting

Who's got the award winners for last night's Mainland awards?

 I've been told it was the Bay$ show

Who told you that?

Winners from Coa$tal $pirit -

Gareth Turnbull x 2

Melissa Cameron

Mouse

Laura Merrin

Women's 1st team x 3

Steve Ager

Most contentious award?

Women's goalkeeper of the year - Lynn Murray (Universities)

How could this be? Makes a mockery of the whole show when someone playing for a team that conceded the most goals in their respective league (53) receives the award over a player who is currently the standout in her position at a FIFA World Cup event. Mind boggling! 

Mind you, probably hard to judge Lily when she only conceded 5 goals in the league all season.

 Coastal U-19 side at ASB tonight

7.30 kick-off

They playing Burnley the team over from Australia.  Big write up by Coggan in the newsletter this month about how great they are. I watched them get smashed 4-0 by the FTC team and they didn't look too hot.

"They playing Burnley the team over from Australia.  Big write up by Coggan in the newsletter this month about how great they are. I watched them get smashed 4-0 by the FTC team and they didn't look too hot"

Totally agree! I watched the game as well and that " Burnley team " were dire. Our lads played them off the park from back to front. Technically they were exceedingly average, and if this is Mainland's idea of  " quality " opposition, they're a bigger joke than I thought. Maybe it was just Coggan and Walker's attempt to bolster the image of the FTC programme by slaughtering sub-standard opposition. On another point: it was a little bit disturbing to see some non-FTC players getting decent game time, and fee paying players being subbed off regularly. What's the point in paying $900 then? If my kid was in the FTC programme, I'd expect them to play virtually the whole match, and any ring-ins to be mostly on the bench(injuries permitting). Still, leave it in the hands of " the professionals " eh?...

That's the issue with the whole school of football/FTC setup. It should always be for the best players, not just those who can pay. I would be interested to know how many are on "scholarships" as well. The game will only progress in fits and starts while the body charged with administering the game focuses on player development in this way to the detriment of club development programmes. It wasn't that long ago the local game was administered by volunteers with no staff. Are we any better off now?

Junior leagues are a mess, they are no longer seen as an essential part of player development, an issue driven by too many people in central roles deciding the development of junior players needs to be centred around them. Drive development through the clubs and the leagues, then you'll see real progress. Without rorting parents for $900 a year.

 $1575 for my 2 kids in FTC is cheap , between them they'll get over 125 sessions plus 2-3 tournaments. Compared to the other sports I know off it's low price. As far as them (Burnley) making FTC look good who is to know, unless we have scouts in Perth. Alternately maybe our side played good football? 

There is a number of things I'd like to ramble on about in the previous two posts , I'll get to it at some point.

I thought the 4-0 game was the Canterbury 13 Rep side, but not sure. Certainly 2 squads there last night and the ones in the stand would only be 12-14 years.

Coastal U-19 side was pretty good last night, went off the boil at bit for 10mins in the second half, otherwise pretty good. Good to see DJ back (plus nice goal) , Zac and Connor great at the back, Aaron S is class.

There are two Burnley teams over I believe, one a 15th grade (in which Mainland's FTC's beat them 4-0 and 2-0 today) and there is a under 16's.  Can't give them too much stick as they are kids but yes, they weren't as good and were soundly beaten. 

Would like to bring up the point raised by Ray Hicks about the players used.  The teams were FTC teams.   I was sitting in the stands with parents of kids in the FTC (I'm not one of them) and there was much discussion about how there were quite a few ring-ins for the FTC who played plenty of the game yet had not paid the same $900 fee that they had.  Does seem a bit off that this happened.  

While we are on the Mainland rant, here's another couple of bits of juicy goss that may or may not be true but when has that ever stopped this forum.  In the South Island Tournament, Canty teams were charged $400 to travel and stay at the same place Mid Canty team stayed and those guys were only charged $50!  And Baranowski is up for a Sport Canty award for "science of sport" despite being relatively invisible during the FTC programme and not delivering what was promised when people signed up for it. 

That's enough shark-stirring for tonight. But you guys started it.

Apparently a good lot of Ceri Evans' 16th grade FTC group are off to cashmere technical to play PDL. And plenty of young cashmere players (Nike cup winning team and above, 15-17) are heading to coastal and elsewhere accordingly. Funny, but one of the reasons for the cashmere technical merger was that there would be player pathways into senior ranks - well that was the naive view from the cashmere people (almost entirely parents of junior players). Whereas they are now finding out that Tech have never taken this view. The old-heads at Tech have always been about getting the best players - and they have not cared about where they come from, or given a toss about junior player development.

 Are they going to tech coz its the best option? or because Halligan is recruiting by using his summer position? or because Evans is replacing Halligan next winter?

Can someone please clarify the selection process used to select who attends the FTC? In my opinion it's all a shambles and some kids are only selected because dad knows someone who knows someone. I watched the Saturday game and was absolutely shocked that some of those kids are even in the FTC.

 As far as the ring-ins goes, I believe there were only two or three in the 15s and a couple of 14s FTC players helping out. as well. From what I understand the only reason these kids were called down was because some of the regular FTC players were either sick or injured. 

I think Mainland would argue fairly strongly that there is a robust selection process. My understanding is that after the Sth Island tournaments the rep coaches put names forward to Mainland. Mainland then invite players to a series of trials (Talent on Location it is called these days) in November. In December Mainland invites players into the FTC programme for the following year - and players either accept or decline. As to standard of players, there is no doubt that at any given time the FTC group might not be the best 16 players or whatever it is in an age group. This is because some players may have declined the opportunity and also because all players are on different trajectories and develop at different rates at different times. So the player invited last December who you saw playing this October may not have progressed as others may have. Others may have different views but that is my knowledge of the process.

 Canterbury won 13's , 14's and 15's SI Tournaments. And those sides could have been missing their "better" players at NTC. 13's final was the 2 Canterbury sides. All those sides have a heap of FTC players in them.

FTC includes selections to trial from the clubs respective FDO's, ie Gareth, Fred, Tetso etc.

TOL happens at a few different times during the year, and also used to help determine NTC.

You'll never get the best x number together at one time. The first thing is they are children, the second different coaches see differnet things, and thirdly it's hard to find an unbiased player evaluation.

Air Rescue Trust grants june 2011 to june 2012; some of the football clubs received the following:

Christchurch Technical AFC $42,909.99

Christchurch Technical AFC Inc $32,771.35

Cashmere Wanderers AFC $38,700

That's $114,381.34 all up. Hmm, at least 2 legal entities receiving grants but only one organisation (Cashmere Technical) applying them?

A comparison....

Ferrymead Bays Football Club Inc $33,371.95

FC2011 Inc $22, 396.09

Halswell United AFC $26,440.71

Coastal Spirit FC Inc $3,717.04

Coastal Spirit Football Club Inc $10,000

Nomads United AFC Inc $7,500

Waimakariri United Fooball Club Inc $2,437.80

well 2nd place in MPL doesn't come cheap.....

Obviously last place does ..... ......... United not on the list at all :)

My bad, Ronaldo. Christchurch United received $7675.95 from Air Rescue.