Mainland Premier League (Part 1)

Still no love lost apparently between Mainland and APFA. I know it's naive of me to think they might be able to work together to raise the standards of player development around here...but hell, I'm an idealist sometimes. By the way, how many Chch players were selected for the (boys) 2013 U17 World Cup training squad of 30? None I think.

Anyway, seems the girls training once or twice a week at APFA were told it's 5 times a week or nothing - so they (APFA) "could completely control all of their training". So girls have to choose - APFA or FTC/NTC. So much for that idealism, eh?

Mainland Pride to play Semi-Final at Tulett Park, 9th December KO tbc 

Burnley Academy had 1500 kids trial in Perth for next intake of players.

Burnley [West Aust] have put a hold because of the above number until January on getting the Chch branch up and running.

Clubs that seem to be in the mix are CashTech, Selwyn, Nomads and Waimak as being the clubs to host the intro camps.

Coastal Spirit to name a new 1st Team coach (men's) at AGM on Monday. Hear he is hot stuff. 

Why not at ASB Football Park???

I got told the Pride game is at Tulett as ASB is double booked.

Korosh leaving/left CSFC????

Heard English Park is booked for marching!  Wasn't Mainland's apparently due to the NZF not being firm on dates for football. Bit embarrassing having marching at our premier football ground and us playing at Nomads!

There is goss in the wings, not just on the Coastal front. More to come. 

Out of mainlands hands then. bit of a shame.

Looking at the clearances page (https://www.sportingpulse.com/assoc_page.cgi?c=1-4206-0-0-0&a=CLEAR) very few early transfers for next season - only one I really noticed was R Stewart from coastal to nelson suburbs was pending.

Yes Skippy has bought a business up in Nelson, and will be joining Suburbs He is aware despite valid reasons for transferring he is now one of the 'others'. 

I hear Coastal are sick of playing with rugby balls and looking at getting into bed with other code that has smaller balls. 

...which is why they wanted to remain separate entities and not truly merge. It's all smoke and mirrors. Frankly I can't see why Mainland have agreed to retaining  the 2 original clubs and having, effectively, a new 3rd "club" (definition of a club?) to oversee admin etc.

Appears U21 league is a go-er for 2013. Dual age band grades at 15-16s and `17-18s?

Don't like the idea of dual age bands, it's not that dire player number wise that this is truly necessary is it?

Gings is right about Youth ages cluster.......; but I'm just passing on what I'm hearing, ladies and gents; don't know that final final decision has been made yet. All sorts of ramifications coach, team, player and draw wise; so it better be this week or next.

Duel age is the way to go, don't know why and which DOF changed it from what we had about ten years ago.

Maybe someone can tell me why it was a good idea to change back to single age divs? 

I know the age splits went down a year from the first season of 15/16 and down to 14/15 etc.

Auckland National U17 tournament at Easter. Looks like FC20, Halswell and Cashmere confirmed so far in Boys draw (plus "Nelson Bays" which looks to have entered a regional team in a 'club' competition). Girls entries so far Include Parklands (I hear Shane Dyer is leaving Mainland FTC by the way - he's taken all of them to Parklands - can anyone confirm that?) and Nelson Bays. No sign yet of Aussie, Pacific island, Asian or American teams yet, as mooted.

 er, well, um, if, maybe.

 classic timing fellas!

Alot of the girls from FTC played for under Shane at Parklands in the 18th grade in the season that just finished anyway & most of them played under Shane when he was coaching the mainland teams when they were playing in the saturday comps so he hasnt really poached them directly from other clubs. If parents are happy with how a rep coach works & creates a good team & club enviroment for their kids to become better footballers then its not really poaching its just about parents making a good decision for their kids isnt it?. I know that some rep coaches probably do it & there can be a fine line between poaching & just offering a good setup. Hard for mainland to police too much when quality coaches can be hard to come by.

Is this an issue and for whom?

Mainland react because they get complaints from clubs.

Clubs complain because they lose players - why do they complain? Most clubs lose more players for other reasons and yet do nothing about that.

Parents follow the rep coach because of a misguided perception it's the best thing to do for little Chardonnay or Skylark.

Rightly or wrongly it is what it is and to suggest Mainland contract coaches to avoid this will only serve to cause further issues.

I dont see it as an issue tbh, the kids/family will follow the coach if they're in that age group etc. my suggestion about contracting could be looked at another way - appoint coaches who work in different age groups (it'd remove the bias and be seen as protecting clubs) but may prove difficult as a large portion of the rep coaches are parents.

The issue was/is, Canty coaches were saying to players: "if you play for my club, then you've got a better chance at making the Canty team".  It definitely did happen during my time coaching and lost kids to one particular club.

Perhaps not an issue now, as I thought Canty coaches have been told they aren't to say these things anymore, but it does seem odd that whole Canty teams go to one particular club.  I mean look at the Mainland Pride for god's sake!  :-)

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha bourgeois hippies obviously.

I think this deserves some explanation foal.

 no, later on maybe.

Here is not the place for individual naming and shaming perhaps. On a club by club basis, game on!

Here is not the place for individual naming and shaming perhaps. On a club by club basis, game on!

You've hit the nail on the head there. The lack of the inter fed/national youth comps has stunted us.

For me the South island champs are a key component. Stick with the base we have. from those teams then pick the fed team and take the best 16 from canterbury, north, mid canty etc to represent us at fed level.

Club feeds south island tournament which then feeds fed/national age level. Surely this would be more worthwhile than a few days at NTC?

 I think what Gings says is the 2013 system.

each age grade will have a side selected to play the Nationals. I suspect this will come from FTC not the various SIF Tournaments.

More than 1 side per grade (obviously) increases participation at SIFT and also mitigates the fact that can we really pick the "best" 13 x 11 year old's for Nelson? Even if we could then I suspect this unbalances the tournament. The reason we don't pick A - B- C sides is partially to stop this happening. 

For sure some parents and coaches much prefer the A- B- C type selections. I prefer the 'participation' style because by involving more children you are (hopefully) exposing them to a different type of football level. 

For the grade for Reps I took this year there was 14-16 players clearly 'above' the others. Then another group of 10-14 all good , then another group of 18-20 all very even but only x amount of those guys can be picked due to the number of available spaces. So even with balancing sides players miss out who may rightfully feel hard by. If this is cut back to just 1 side then we have even more players "hard done by" and could well face a drop off in player numbers. Maybe.

 as far as addressing the Saturday Comps I think age movement restrictions is a good thing. Limiting each club to only 1x side per Div 1 also has merit but seems to be unlikely given the options and depth the bigger clubs have.

If the two rules are applied together what happens to the overflow of players a club may have in that grade? FWIW I'd sooner play 2x FC2011 sides of a higher caliber than any match we win by 10. 

Anyway I think 2013 winter comp will be a lot better than this seasons.

The days of kids sticking to the club in their area are long gone, one team per club encourages clubs on the cusp of Div 1 footy to recruit other players to boost their playing strength, creating a higher quality competition and incentive for all clubs to stay focussed on development of coaches - no player will travel to play in a poorly coached team. A bit like the initial federation concept of providing opportunities to players in weaker teams/clubs to step up. Easily done by a simple enforcement of an existing rule - 1 team per club in all Div 1 competitions. As the school of football or whatever it is devolves back in to club based academies supported by Mainland (yes it will happen!) and the FDO's increased quality of coaches is where we will make the biggest strides in the game in the near future. That and artificial turfs at all clubs :). 2013 looks like a year where some synergies are starting to happen between Mainland and clubs in spite of one or two clubs trying to assert their own view of things.

 yeah relationship between Mainland and the clubs is way better, great to see.

and FTC at the clubs will be ideal, 2013 be good to see Club Div1 coaches at FTC observing/helping/learning.

having the FTC players come back to play the Saturday grades has worked a treat (for me at least) now lets try it with the coaches.