my kids have always played up because it was a better footballing option.
Players should be in their corresponding age grade. Player development is club coaching and FTC.
Foal, your self-acknowledged hypocrisy doth confuse me. Also, your own club plays lots of players up - especially at 15/17/PDL grades - so I'm a tad confused about your confusion around the 'playing up' philosophy
In theory Foal is right but the practicalities mean otherwise. And yes other clubs are only mimicking what has worked so successfully for Coastal, although this is nothing new.
Why do Coastal play players up in PDL/Seniors?
Take a look at the clubs attrition rate to schools and the farcical School of Football teams and you pretty much have your reason. that and the fact that no genuinely talented player I know of has ever suffered from early promotion. Not to mention the competition from other clubs to pick up disaffected young players who don't get their shot at the bigtime when they want it.
Part of the problem currently with the one sided score-lines is happening because you see the introduction of school teams to leagues that causes issues for club teams that lose players. When you spend 3 - 5 years or longer developing players in teams it gets difficult once the better players get picked off by the schools and you are forced into putting out an average side that previously was ok in Div 1. This constantly puts clubs on the back foot and forces them to go looking for players to fill the slots or recreate teams that are competitive. Mainland dicking around with competition structures certainly isn't helping.