Mainland Premier League (Part 1)

 Canterbury 12 Girls won , beating a very strong Nth Canterbury side

14 Girls were 2nd and 4th, with Selwyn winning the comp on penalties

12 Boys, Harry McCosh side won in the high winds and near torrential rain.

11 Boys, I have a sneaking suspicion one of our forum members coached the winning team! C'mon Gings, give us the skinny!! No need for false modesty mate!

Can safely say I wasn't responsible for the winning team.

All 4 Canterbury 11s through to quarters - 3 of them going unbeaten in the pools.

Finals day was perfect for ducks

black and grey in the semis...

Black went out in extra time to nelson after it finished 1-1

Grey went up against a very physical and fast south canterbury and won their semi 3-0?

South canterbury pipped black for 3rd.

Grey (coached by Fred Simpson) won the final in the shoot out!

Canty Grey 1st

Nelson Royal 2nd

South Canty 3rd

Canty Black 4th
Canty White 5th

Otago blue 6th

Canty Red 7th

and thats all I remember...

Firstly, AW game, no way crowd was 10,700 if capacity is 18,000. North stand chocka, South stand 5/8 full, southern stand 40%. I was thinking 12,500-13,000. Rubbish football (esp 2nd half) by the way.

Labour weekend U19s:

1. Nationals in Napier: 

Cashmere Technical fancy themselves to win it apparently. Who'd have thought? 

Napier City site has them listed officially as Christchurch Technical. Wonder what Cashmere people think of that?

Guest players: Ceri Evans' son Oscar (played CBHS this year I think); GK James Gribben and Joel Stevens.

2. Coastal-run Tsunmai tournament:

Boys:

Cashmere, FC20 and Coastal with 2 entries each, one each from Waimak, Halswell, Burwood (a Shirley Boys team in disguise I'm told), Chc Utd, Hornby and University. Out of town entries from Mid Canty, Southland, Nelson, Richmond.No Bays or Western teams.

Imagine Coastal A  and FC20 A will be strong; likewise Nelson and Richmond, and University the wild card?

Girls: 10 teams, incl Wgtn's Stop Out & Nelson

Agree re: AWs...was picking 13k+

Think the tech team in napier will be pretty strong but strong enough to make the semis? they didnt go overly well last year.

The burwood tsunami team will be their PDL B squad for the most part - largely SBHS 1sts in 2011.
No Western, Nomads or Bays.

I'm picking it to be an FC v Coastal final

Ceri Evans wanted his son to be 'seen' in Napier ;)

 first games for Tsunami kick-off 09.30 Saturday. Buy as many sausages as you can ( bit rich coming from a vegan I know) fundraising for Kanga Cup.

see you all there!

A vegan selling sausages at a Coastal Tsunami tournament. 

There's so many things wrong with that sentence.

 good crowd again today at Tsunami

weather forecast a bit dire for tomorrow

both finals are Coastal v Nelson

12.15 Girls

2.00 Boys

Burwood Boys team went real well, only lost on pens (1-4) in the semi-final to Coastal, after winning all 4 of their games. 

Cashmere-Technical into U-19 semi-final in Napier.

Napier Tourny

Semi final: Cashmere Tech 1 Lower Hutt 3 aft FT 1 - 1 

In the Coastal under 19's Nelson girls beat Coastal 2-1 and then Coastal beat Nelson in the boys game by penalties.  Top weekend with lotsa talent about.

Burwood the surprise of the weekend going out in the semis on penalties before securing 3rd with a shootout win over FC2011 this morning. their keeper picked up MVP. Not bad for a team seeded 16th. Can they back it up next year?

Strong performances from both Nelson girls and boys, boys will be kicking themselves not winning after creating numerous chances to win it. Coastal's vaunted midfield failed to fire and they struggled to score goals all tournament even with a host of MPL players in the side. Still Skippy will be happy to head off to Nelson having redeemed himself with the title :)

It's interesting that current MPL champs Bays weren't in attendance while main rivals CTech had 2 teams (5th & 14th) there plus one in Napier (semi finalist), FC2011 had 2 teams there (4th & 6th) and hosts Coastal had 2 teams (1st & 11th). How long can Bays hang on with no development (no junior team above 14th grade)? My guess is when their misguided approach finally catches up with them they will experience a very rapid decline.

Also Western not represented in the boys and struggled a bit in the MPL this year, also short on junior teams, could this be a pointer to their future?

United there in the boys (13th), how many of those lads will get the call up to Div 1 next season? I hear they are losing MPL players since relegation became a reality at the end of the season.

Nomads with a host of junior teams but not at the tournament for the first time in 5 years. What's up there?

Bays and Nomads [prob same for Western but not direct from them] didn't enter as they put a team in the Cant Dragons dev cup.

Nomads had player at the Napier T/ment in the CashTech team.

Far too much put into thinking a good performance at this t/m will result in a MPL winning club. Yeah right.

How are you going to fit all these 18 year olds into your MPL team? Not for the next 5 or 6 years or are you expecting all the 20+ to retire this year?

Nomad didn't have a junior team above 15th grade [2 teams] and most of the better players are still only Nike cup age.

A Nelson Suburbs womens team would be great for the MPL but you'd find the squad 95% similar to the U19 team that just visited. Emily Jensen is the obvious stand out but does play for Three Kings United during the winter season.

Hawkes Bay today report on U19 final mentions "Christchurch United" being beaten in the semi-final. It was actually Christchurch Technical; which was the official team entry apparently.

But Christchurch Technical no longer plays in the Mainland federation. They play as Cashmere Technical. Dunedin Technical didn't enter the satellite tournament this year, so no 'confusion' reasons exist. What reason could there be to play under that name? 

I reckon there is more to come on this supposed merger. It will be back to Christchurch Technical before you know it. You heard it here first.

Anyway, well done to Danny's team for making it that far. Plenty of that lot will still be eligible next year.

Yeah i thought it was weird how they were called CHCH Tech on the YF podcast ..until i read this.

MPL stays as automatic promotion  from div 1 or with play off with Nelson/Marl if needed for the next 3 years.

PDL only one div no PDL B. 

Varsity not happy as they don't have a place for players in what was their PDL B team. whats wrong with Div 2 if not good enough for the Div 1 team. 

Seems only Varsity could be bothered to put this point over at Wednesday night meeting, maybe Waimak, Burwood and others could give a toss.

WMPL call is out for more refs with the women needing to step up and get their own females together to ref their game.

More to be heard about this I think with some clubs not getting refs for PDL A games last year and female league getting 3 officials.

How long will it take Mainland Football to put out a notice to clubs re this request? 

Draft MPL Draw for next year is out. Starts 23rd March. PDL to KO at 12.30.

Mainlands payment policy. still to be released to clubs.

Clubs can play players up to a non contacted fee of $750 for reimbursement of expenses.

If you wish to plyers more than this it needs to be in a written contract as to what it's for. EG Coaching, President, Secretary duties.

Excellent reporting ScottieRd. Be interesting to see what happens to all those players from PDL B league. Not sure what the make-up was of the 2nd PDL 'B' teams from Halswell, FC20, Cashmere - quite young I would have thought? Are they going to go into Mens div 1 or 2? Or leave the game? And then there's Selwyn - that PDL B league was a vehicle for the APFA boys until they packed a sad and left; so they are unlikely to play in any league are they?

If PDL is 12:30 kick off, any news on restructure or change of kick off times for 15, 16-17, 18s? 

 I understand Varsity kicking up a stink about PDL B being cut as they've been told any new team (ie: not U/22s) has to go to the bottom of the pile- Div 6 (or maybe 7 depending on what happens around town).

I hope they fix the 17s/18s/PDL issue - why have these grades over lap?

Heard potential for dual banding for 13/14 15/16 and 17/18 - so U/14, 16 & 18s to try fix the shambles they've had. Also heard a proposal that ALL players must play in their age group up to the end of U/15s unless they are FTC or NTC.

Also remember that whole of football dictates 11s will be non competitive for 2013 - no tables or results published

Fantastic gossip tree happening at the moment, where to start!

I agree that its a dumb idea to can the PDL B, if there are too many teams to make one PDL, then we need a B team to save teams having to wade the mire of Div 6.

Great news that juniors have to play in their own grade, but how will it be enforced you wonder. Don't like the idea of mixed grades (13/14 etc) there is too much of a difference in size around these ages. 

Massive call about clubs being able to pay players!!!  What does that mean for the fantastic clubs that know that its not in anyone's best interest to pay players? Will we have a group of players that now have bargaining power to say "I know you're allowed to pay me!" 

Womens PL need 3 refs.

 gossip foal says the Cash-Tech showdown was this weekend

anyone with the skinny?

 yes AGM was this week/end, was wondering if the club was going back to Tech and Cashmere.

I don't know, just asking as a nosy neighbour.

 I'd heard whispers of napier being the debut of the christchurch tech name.

Also heard chch united is pretty much at folding point.

Christchurch Tech should start off in Div 6....

Although my above comment was tongue in cheek, what would happen to the two teams? Would Cashmere go back to where they were, in Div 1, and Tech take the MPL spot?

 I cant see them separating out again tbh. all that work and pissing people off for it to last a season?

The answer lies in 2 questions -

What has the merger done for those communities?

and

What has it done for football?

To my mind there has only been 2 necessary and successful mergers in the past 10 years and one of those may need to split due to demographics in the next 5 years.

 crikey

 Short term they'll get bigger - that many rep coaches from the one club will only lead to player migration. But as you say - the wheels will fall off when players aren't happy at a lack of progression etc.

For me the interesting one is the waimak situation - it may also open up stronger north canty rep teams with it moving away from a waimak driven entity.

Also had a chat with someone today saying prebbleton fc want to enter saturday comps from next season - will mainland budge from the 'no new entities' ruling of recent times?

The whole Selwyn/Prebbleton/Rolleston/Lincoln thing is interesting. Different from Waimak in that Rangiora & Kaiapoi were already established clubs before the merger. Mainland probably need to get in there as the sports governing body with overall responsibility for game development and give some guidance. They are starting to take on this responsibility much more seriously than in the past, whether they are good at it or not remains to be seen but at least they are doing it. It pretty much comes back to demographics and a cunning plan. If Prebbleton can come up with a model of sustainable growth that leads to a senior club supporting both men's and women's games then I say go for it, as long as the same happens for Selwyn/Rolleston/Lincoln. There are still too many clubs around that sell the game short by focusing on only certain areas such as Juniors, senior social men, MPL etc. Any club should have as part of its licence to operate a commitment to providing the opportunity for anyone living in that community to play the game. Simple stuff.

The issue out here (and partly why I'm still at Halswell) is that Selwyn have almost tried to set up their own federation with different 'clubs' running under the Selwyn banner. While it's probably the best idea for juniors for demographic reasons, once you get up to senior level it gets a bit messy with a senior Selwyn side plus Rolleston, West Melton, Rakaia in the lower leagues. What should probably really happen is make Selwyn a region like Christchurch/Nelson/Mid Canterbury/West Coast are, and separate them like they do with Ellesmere rugby.

Foal, are you sure there was a combined AGM ? 

According to www.cashmerefootball.co.nz (branded Cashmere Technical) ...

Aside - they decided to merge over a year ago; why no new website; and why is the woolston tech one still up? -

...the Cashmere Wanderers AFC AGM and Christchurch Technical AGM are being held simultaneously on 28th November.

If there is a legal entity called Cashmere Technical then they would have to advertise the upcoming AGM. I've seen no such thing.