So it sounds like they are not following the WOF plan up north. Playing competitively makes them better competitors and gives them more game skills. Tournaments mean winners and losers - not what we need or so we are told.
I believe smaller, well graded, more even competition groups locally will certainly help at this age and at 11th grade.
Up until the changes our 11th and 12th grade Div One competitions were very good.
Two years of non competition seems to have impacted on our results in Nelson also. Two years ago all four Canty teams made the last 8 in 11th grade. Not last year and not this year.
Clubs need to look closely at proposed changes from Mainland for 2015 and share some ideas of their own.
Unconvinced Nelson results have much to do with WOF relative to the 4 Canterbury sides. 11's and 12's have been good but were often the last year there was more than 2 sides capable of winning D1.
Locally having more even comps would surely help. However there is certainly no uniformity in how the clubs wish to achieve this. Or in fact if they even want to. Fred your "hub" proposal has some great points but is still reliant on the clubs and coaches taking it on. Normally ideas that can appear to move autonomy away from Clubs is met with resistance.
Mainland did take ideas in from the clubs 6-8 weeks ago, showing my Coastal bias having the School First XI as a standalone Wed comp
Would help us tremendously but dual age band even more so. But would dual age band prems help CTFC?