Mainland Juniors (please play nice)

How do teams qualify for national tournament? Don't remember seeing Lincoln, Rangiora, Cashmere in Saturday competitions? I know Burnside have done well in the past, again not a traditional Football school. Especially when CBHS, St Andrews, St Bedes etc not there.

Any team that finishes higher than 4th in Div 2 is deemed to be playing at an acceptable level maybe? ;-P

NZ Secondary Schools football manage the tournament entries. You just have to fill out a form and enter, and then they allocate the tournament spots based on some pretty arbitrary guesswork.

There is a "wildcard" process which means they can put anyone in the top comp. They routinely do that with the big schools if they "miss out" or a major area is under-represented.

There were 2 pools for Canterbury teams trying to qualify for the 2014 Lotto Premier National HS tournament on now in Napier.

One pool consisted of: Christ's College, Rangiora HS, CBHS, St Bede's, St Andrew's and Mountain View (Timaru). 

The 2nd pool had Lincoln, Cashmere, Burnside, Middleton Grange, Shirley BHS and Timaru BHS.

The teams in each pool played each other; so each school had a total of 5 qualifying games.

Christ's College won their pool, Rangiora were 2nd. 

Lincoln & Cashmere were the top 2 in their pool.

So these 4 teams qualified. 

Shirley BHS got the wildcard; I don't know why. 

The other schools from the Mainland region to qualify were Nelson and Nayland.

High School teams that fail to qualify for the Lotto Premier National tournament in Napier are then free to enter the other satellite tournaments, of which there are 5 and for which there are no qualifying games; Burnside, Middleton Grange, Mountainview, St Bede's and Timaru BHS are all playing in the Trident tournament in Nelson; CBHS is in the Rex Dawkins tournament in Inglewood, while St Andrew's is in Papakura playing in the Malcolm Cowie tournament.

Good luck to all of them

Last year Papanui HS won the Linwood tournament and Rangiora HS won the Jim Wishart tournament.

Well done to both teams.

This coming Saturday, Mid Canterbury host their annual mini tournament for teams going to South Island tournaments in October.

Rep teams from Selwyn, Mid Canterbury, South Canterbury and North Canterbury, in age groups 13th,14th,15th and 16th Grades are participating.

Games from 9am at Ashburton Domain or Argyle Park.

On paper Selwyn should clean up.

also 10, 11 & 12's playing. 10's include a couple of club teams

I heard a rumour that the Canterbury lads teams were not allowed to take part. Sideline grumbling, but if anyone else has heard similar, then I guess it has some traction.

What were the Ashburton mini tournament results?

I don't remember any Canterbury sides participating in the Ashburton  pre-tournament. It's just way it's always been. Similar thing happens in rugby union which may also include Nelson.

Fantastic result: All participating teams benefitted from trying out different things, so good preparation for the smaller districts. 

Awesome job mid canterbury for putting this on every year. Must have been over 40 rep teams there playing bumper to bumper from 9am to 6pm. Don't think they could fit any christchurch rep teams in if they wanted to. As it is some teams had to shuttle between Argyle Park and Ashburton Domain. 

14's I believe were

Nth Cant 0-3 Sth Cant

Mid Cant 0-9 Selwyn

Mid Cant 1-2 Nth Cant

Selwyn 5-0 Sth Cant

Selwyn 3-0 Nth Cant

Sth Cant 4-0 Mid Cant

Would not read too much into some of these results, but note that Selwyn have a very strong starting 11.

Some teams were down to less than a fit 11 for some games.

Canterbury teams choose not to participate.

Must be annoying that players have chosen to not participate.

Rather have kids that want to play and are committed, than have players or their parents who tell all they are too good and can't be bothered to play.

Funny how the names are pretty wrong really... Canterbury Teams choose not to participate - seeing as Canterbury pretty much encompasses all those teams - maybe they need to change the rep team name?   Can't play for Canterbury because you live in Selwyn - sorry kiddo.  Wait what?!

Very rugby but how bout Metro or Town? Fair point though, not a true representation of Canterbury. 

Perhaps when some kind of NZ championship is sorted out once a year or so (to play Wellington, Auckland etc), we can select from all of the districts and go for it from there as a "Canterbury" team. As it is now, if all the top talent from all the districts was put into one team to play Otago, there might be a bit of a hiding involved that benefitted no-one, simply by virture of massive talent pool. Then we can get into north v south, which would be pretty tasty, especially if NZF used it as a talent ID option as well.

Mainland (ie incl Nelson) won boys U15 National FTC tournament in Wellington last December - all Feds represented. It was a pretty competitive tournament (except for Auckland as their best players were not in FTC but at schools and WYNRS). I understand the tournament is running again this year.

Sooooooooooooo 70's ............. one of the main reasons why the Fedrations were formed in the first place was so that a kid from Timaru who would otherwise never be "seen" at  national top tier tournament had a chance. Then they (NZF) scrapped the tournament which the Federations have now reintroduced ........................ they don't know what they're doing .....................

except they are now FTC tournaments and assume that all the best kids attend FTCs. So the point of the tournament is......?? leverage to fill FTC places???

Some interesting observations coming back from Ashburton last week comparing season's progress of FTC kids vs others. South Island Tournaments are going to be interesting.  

What does this even mean ? 

What observations ? Yours or from others ? Please explain .

My observation is this; FTC kids speeding off in front of other players. The NTC selections for the most part are very good too. 

So skill sets I like to see or value in players matches what Mainland seem to be wanting as well. 

Good little tournament on Saturday at Yaldhurst. 10 teams (9 of whom are going to the 10th Grade tournament in Nelson next weekend, while the other - Waimak A is off to a tournament in Auckland the week after).

Cash-Tech won the title beating the Uni White side in the final. Waimak A beat Uni Blue in the 3rd/4th play off while the other teams finished in order Nomads, Waimak B, Halswell and Uni Gold.

15min games (not halves) meant not many goal scored, but it was a good experience for the kids.

Anyone here  going to any of the respective SI tournaments. I know a couple  of  the board are coaching , updates, stories, tip players reports all appreciated.

I'm taking a team to the Nelson 10th Grade Tournament this coming Sun, Mon and Tues...

good luck for the trip Dougie. Is it a Nth Canterbury side?

Not the rep side, but still a team from Nth Canty - the Waimak B side...

Yes, I am taking Nth Cant boys to Dunedin.

Good luck. Hope you enjoy the tournament and the boys have a top time

Might catch you on Finals day, hoping to knick down on the Thursday. Best of luck.

Canterbury 11th Grade Grey team apparently lost their 1st game 3-1 up in Nelson, not sure who they were playing

11th Grade

Canterbury Grey lost to Otago, drew with Nelson Bays

Canterbury Red lost to Otago Blue, beat Nelson Diamond

Canterbury Black, beat Nth Canterbury

Canterbury White 2 draws, Malbourgh and Sth Canterbury Black.

cant see 2 Waimak sides in the draw? 

my information is the A team is off to auckland club tournament

Yes that's correct, it's to be played Fri, Sat and Sun this coming week

Where can I see the draw for the South Island tournament for Timaru?

Not sure where it is online, but I have it. I will attempt to post it here shortly