Wgtn Mens U21 Leagues

Really Janelle...

Any in depth details on Miramar?
We have a defense heavy plan for sunday. But would like to know more.
Hopefully we can get a low scoring loss to them.

A win would be awesome though.
High hopes..
Upsets happen.

In other news.
We lost 3-1 to uni on sunday.
Gutting result, its a game we definitely should have won.
Was 0-0 at half time. We scored first but we just fell asleep in the and let them get the better of us.

Get out the student bus and park it in front of goal fat max.

Was just chatting to a mate who said it was 10-0 to Miramar or something, so i guess you're defensive plan didn't work - unless it worked really well and it should have been 20-0. So are Miramar that good? Any good young players coming through?

I think Miramar are playing some of their younger 2nd and 3rd team players (I could be wrong but this is what I have been told)

That Miramar team is basically a combo of Wellington Coll. and St. Pats 1st XI players, and they're easily the best team in the comp. Would fully expect some of their players to be playing for at least Mar 3rds.

I watched their 2nds play yesterday and young Sam Becker did quite well in the middle of the park. Then Josh Bell came on as sub and looked lively also (he's quite quick). And then there was a right full back called Ethan someone, but he struggled IMO and kept giving the ball away - other than that I didn't see any young players other than a huge blonde lad on the bench who didn't get on-I thought I recognised him from somewhere but I can't recall who he is. So I don't think the 2nds are a big source of players so must be schoolboys getting a second game in.Toffeeman662011-05-23 11:41:21

Cheers.

Yes they are clearly the best team in the league and have some good players. They play a nice passing game.

So apparently Wellington Utd and Island bay are entering teams into U21s? Considering we've just finished the first round will this mean points reset?

Anyone from either club able to offer an opinion on the strength of the teams?

Teza2011-05-30 13:21:53

Not sure about the points situation, but I would assume they will reset it. More teams is better for the league though.

United is going to be largely made up of Coll kids and the young lads in our reserve team squad. Hard to say what that means in terms of strength in this league because a) I don't know the strength of the other teams and b) I don't know how our team will shape up.

We've had good interest from kids wanting to play under 19s for us so this team is partly about developing that group and obviously it's good to have more young guys coming into the club in general. I'm sure that's the same for other clubs.

One of the Wests sides last year were the Porirua Cap 15 side playing U21s on Sunday.  Could still be them.

This is correct, and last year we had only a couple players who wanted two games per weekend playing for Porirua, rather than an entire team.

I wouldn't jump to any conclusions just yet. While I'd like to hope we'd be strong I really don't know what kind of mix we're going to get from Coll. I would say a lot of the kids from there are already tied into Miramar and the new Island Bay team. I understand we have a core of our young U19 team from last year [who were all from Coll's 2nd/3rd/4th teams I think] plus a few more who are interested in joining.
The biggest positive for these kids and the club is the new development/reserve coach who arrives here tomorrow. From what I've heard he's got a lot of experience so it's exciting for the club to have him and this new development of young players in our ranks.

Miramar beat the other north wellington team 15-0 yesterday.
Makes our 9-0 win look a hell of a lot better.

Plus, It was my nose the ball hit, not the back. Im still feeling it today.
Yesterday was my last Under 21 game unless we get another late game. As im changing jobs and have to work Sundays. And moving to senior football.
Pretty gutting since we lost and I was not doing well.

I just hope we get some late sunday games though. Going to miss playing with my team. Will still train with them though.

Ouch! Your nose ay, well that makes it even funnier . Seriously though you guys played well, the game was in the balance (I was getting very worried) until we scored that late goal.

Who are you going to play for, back to Wharfies? Good that you're going to continue training with the guys though, hope you enjoyed playing for North Wgtn

I'm staying with north Wellington.
My coach Graham plays cap 10 and his team trains with us every week so I already know the guys and have played a game for them already.

WU 7 - 0 Nth W

IBU 9 - 0 North Wellington City

Miramar 17 Tawa 2...these scores are just plain silly

Really? In my oval code, we get 100-0. In cricket, over 1000 etc. Do you want pc-nonsense to creep into your soccer as well and make sure that goal differenec doesn't exceed say, 2? Come on, if you have a "quality" in the heart of your comeptition, your competition will degenerate into mediocrity and vanish before you realise it. You want your future All Whites to be very competitive against Vanuatu, Samoa, Tuvalu, etc and woeful against the likes of Mexico? Sadly only few will shine but the bulk of your guys are pretty lame. Fact of life.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10730161

Oh yeah? Fuck off.

So, you think U21 is meant for soccer's no hopers who leave schools but in order to keep them "interested" in soccer, you guys have set up the U21 league.  Stop thinking about getting humped by better players, instead act on your mediocrity and improve! Otherwise,  your U21 will lack credibility and vanish.

AngusBeef has not played in the league. He can not know.
The league this year is completely different. U21's had two leagues. U21 A and B.
I think that with the introduction of the two new teams, there is argument to perhaps split into two. I know for a fact that we would rather play and lose games against teams that we have more chance with. Rather than the likes of Miramar and that.

For us it is an opportunity to develop and look at players for U19s, I don't see a problem with that. We aren't playing any of our first team U21s and mostly only any reserve U21s who don't get much game time on the Saturday. At our club we only have enough guys for one U21 team, there is a mix of handy players and some not so much but we play who we have and who wants to play. We can't say "the point of this league is not to win by 7+ goals so we should maybe try weaken our side to help the others out" because we are just playing who we have simple as that.

Stefan, Teza, do you think U21 should be a particapation league ONLY catering for mediocre soccer players? One way is to handicap and crimp good players from playing in U21 so the dropout participants can play. What a world you guys live in!

Teza, can't fault your approach in making better players out of not-so-good players. At the same time, you got to have quality within your U21 to attract more players into the league. If your U21 is specifically catering for mediocity, then why should anyone bother? Do we still need to treat not-so-good U21 players as special players to the extent that they are given a special league for them to have fun and exclude the minority who want to excel? Are you saying those better players should play against men and get kicked off the field??

Teza, your problem is Mediocrity throughout your brain. You should embrace excellence and cultivate excellence, not exclude excellence within your U21 league. Don't just be another brick in the Wall.

Is he not trying to say that anyone really excellent is generally already playing an appropriate level... this league is for the rest.


Correct me if im wrong

The general idea is that the 'non-mediocre' players after highschool are moving into either reserve sides for central league/cap prem sides or even pushing for 1st team squad spaces - that avenue is already there. The idea wasn't to set up an elite colts competition (you're rugby analogy I guess - I remember colts being 2nd only in importance to prems in some clubs) but to provide a pathway from schools into clubs for non-elite ('mediocre') players.

I have no issue if this elite colts thing was to happen, but as has been mentioned previously, multiple divisions would be needed to still meet the initial goal of the competition. As the grade becomes more popular, and more clubs embrace it, i'm sure this will happen.aitkenmike2011-06-07 16:53:18

Thanks for the backup guys, i was banging my head against the wall there (and I have few brain cells to loose as it is)