Grade Cricket

[Aerie]

Surely first and foremost a decision has to be made on the Premier League and what shape that takes for the future, if at all?

Once that is known, then the other recommendations can be considered?

Without Premier League you obviously have to draw Grade Cricket up to standard - presumably with the implementation of whatever comes of this review, which would have to include a reduction in clubs and an increase in funding for facilities and coaching.

With Premier League you might as well make Grade Cricket less of a commitment for all and sundry so you get more participation. It may as well be merged with Turf Cricket and let the strongest clubs in SA sort themselves out regardless of whether they are Grade or Turf affiliated. Resources can then be spent on the Premier League and the Premier League gets a bigger pool of players to choose from.

[heater31]

Think the BBL contract saga could be a higher priority at the minute....

[Willo]

Does anybody know what the "recommendations" are? Mergers, saca taking over curating, reduced funding to the clubs, loss of junior grades etc?

Pretty good guess!!

Heard they have recommended ten clubs, no surprise there, but their mergers were bit different. Woodville and Port at Woodville, Glenelg and West Torrens at the Bay, Uni and Prospect at Uni, and Adelaide and Sturt at either Unley or Goodwood. Amazing how all the teams out North dont get touched, surely some of them are too close together! Plus the tenth team is recommended from Gawler, yet another from out there. You would think most players from Barossa League go to Northerns anyway.

Other points worth noting are:

D's to be Under 19's comp with three older players allowed.

14 Whites to go, but Ray Sutton Shield to be played all season instead of only five weeks. Both 16 Reds and Whites survive.

No One day comp, or Knockout format so less Matches, or make it Under 21, plus 20/20 on Tuesday nights.

SACA take over control of preparing pitches, more money for Coaches, better relationships with Community clubs, Umpiring fees to maybe double to get past players involved, and Country zones to be removed.

Similar points continue to be raised, with couple of different ones. Not sure what time frame they have set for sone of this stuff.

You would think Mergers for coming season would be tough to get up and going for coming season. Plus no mention of Premier League at all either!

Interesting times ahead!

[heater31]

Reckon the Junior recommendations will be the only ones to get up along with the extra SACA Funding for pitch prep and coaching payments

The rest will be politely told to feck off.......

[Aerie]

Thanks Willo.

Wouldn't be surprised if there are a couple of mergers, but will be a stretch to get it down to 10 teams, even though that number would be ideal IMO. Would have thought Northern Districts cover Gawler well enough.

Junior idea has merit, as does the D Grade becoming U19's, as does reducing the amount of cricket played via eradicating the one day comp.

Clubs would gladly accept SACA doing pitch prep and spend more on coaching I'd imagine.

The key is getting the number of clubs down to 10 and that will be bloody hard!

[The Old Fellow]

"better relationships with Community clubs, Umpiring fees to maybe double to get past players involved,"

Some district clubs only think that community clubs are there to rape and pillage their playing stocks and act as big brother to them. The community club is only there for the distict clubs benefit. And then there are some other district clubs which work hand in hand with schools and community clubs in their area. It will be difficult to change the opinions of the former district clubs.

Umpire fees may double - will it attract past players or will it entice umpires from ATCA and other community associations to district. If it is the later it is the exact opposite to what Neil Poulton has said in the past and will hinder obtaining the targets set to increase umpire numbers in other associations. All are aware of player and umpire pathways to district and higher from community associations for the elite but it needs to be kept at the elite so that the level increases and not decreases.

Number of clubs has always been an issue as it spreads the talent too thin. Mergers will only happen if the clubs initiate it, not SACA. The old boys clubs will never agree to merger and loose their identity.

Interesting to hear about the u 14 white going. How will this be handled? As with a number of district clubs their juniors have come straight from school teams and not community clubs where will these players go? If handled wrong these players will be lost to the game.

Interesting times ahead

[Homer J]

The D grade as an u19 comp is a great idea, get rid of the old farts and D graders who'll only ever play D's.
Not sure about Ray Sutton all season, it's essentially an U13 comp, year 6/7 school kids. If is on the same day as 14's, the best U13 kids will still play 14 Reds.
A Gawler team would kill the jets, 70% of their kids come from the Gawler/Barossa area, they'd be left with the PDCA comp for all their kids, not enough depth there.

[smac]

Jets should consider being the Gawler team, beats what you (rightly, IMO) suggest, Homer J.

[Homer J]

Not a bad idea smac, maybe someone could build a nice pair of ovals, clubrooms and an indoor centre within all those new developments along the main north road.

[Tony Clifton]

Why would they get rid of 14 whites? Would have thought 16 whites would go first.

[daysofourlives]

Why would they get rid of 14 whites? Would have thought 16 whites would go first.

Yeah considering U16 is the hardest grade to have kids interested, I dont know how from one under 14 team they will then fill two U16 teams.
Maybe they are thinking the full season of U13 will sort of replace U14 white.

Considering all other competitions really struggle to fill sides at U16 level it would make sense to only have one U16 grade so that there is extra players filtering back to these clubs.

[Footy Smart]

Why would they get rid of 14 whites? Would have thought 16 whites would go first.

Yeah considering U16 is the hardest grade to have kids interested, I dont know how from one under 14 team they will then fill two U16 teams.
Maybe they are thinking the full season of U13 will sort of replace U14 white.

Considering all other competitions really struggle to fill sides at U16 level it would make sense to only have one U16 grade so that there is extra players filtering back to these clubs.

I personally think, the 16 whites should change to an U15. I know at my club we look to (not always possible) NOT have any 'second year' U16s in the 16whites, so it effectively is U15s. The gap between 14reds and 16reds is considerable and the kids need that extra year development and U15s would provide that.

[Keyser Soze]

The district clubs will never merge whilst the governing body of grade cricket is the grade cricket council made up of representatives of each club....own club interests will always prevail. The SACA is trying to gain control of this by offering up to $90k per club for coaching with the director of coaching at each club to be a SACA employee and have a set standard of coaching across the system. However isn't this already achieved by the level 2 coaching course offered by SACA, I would suspect most grade coaches have a level 2 coaching certificate? Will the grade clubs ever give up this governing power, it would place them at the mercy of SACA direction?

just some thoughts:

Why not consider the move of juniors to a Sunday comp to enable more College kids to play grade cricket would this increase numbers?

Scrap D-grade, is basically an under 19's comp now with the odd overage player. If a player is 18 or 19 and still playing D-Grade is probably not up to grade cricket standard as tough as that sounds. Would clubs agree to this as will cost $$$.

It would be interesting to see what involvement Grade clubs have with community clubs in there area, i'd say it's very minimal if not non-existent.

[heater31]

Can't have SACA juniors on Sunday as most kids would back up for a community club on that day.

The real problem is the retention of juniors moving into seniors and getting beyond that 2nd year of seniors....

[The Hound]

Juniors on a Sunday would push kids back to community clubs as the college boys would be available, especially if we moved to the D grade being andU/19 comp. Have 1 X 13's, 1 X 15's and 1 x 17's then the grades align with the state age groups. For those clubs that say they will miss out on subs from juniors and the sale of cans of coke, I say you will actually save money through not having to pay for balls and the hire of ovals for your juniors as your juniors will be playing on the clubs home grounds which is what they want to do.

[beeroclock]

Does anybody know what the "recommendations" are? Mergers, saca taking over curating, reduced funding to the clubs, loss of junior grades etc?

Pretty good guess!!

Heard they have recommended ten clubs, no surprise there, but their mergers were bit different. Woodville and Port at Woodville, Glenelg and West Torrens at the Bay, Uni and Prospect at Uni, and Adelaide and Sturt at either Unley or Goodwood. Amazing how all the teams out North dont get touched, surely some of them are too close together! Plus the tenth team is recommended from Gawler, yet another from out there. You would think most players from Barossa League go to Northerns anyway.

Other points worth noting are:

D's to be Under 19's comp with three older players allowed.

14 Whites to go, but Ray Sutton Shield to be played all season instead of only five weeks. Both 16 Reds and Whites survive.

No One day comp, or Knockout format so less Matches, or make it Under 21, plus 20/20 on Tuesday nights.

SACA take over control of preparing pitches, more money for Coaches, better relationships with Community clubs, Umpiring fees to maybe double to get past players involved, and Country zones to be removed.

Similar points continue to be raised, with couple of different ones. Not sure what time frame they have set for sone of this stuff.

You would think Mergers for coming season would be tough to get up and going for coming season. Plus no mention of Premier League at all either!

Interesting times ahead!

In other words ITS STILL A MESS.

[Footy Smart]

Why would they get rid of 14 whites? Would have thought 16 whites would go first.

TC i would suggest this is due to the current batch of U14s transitioning to U16s for season 2014/15. By cutting the number of U14 kids this year, next year less go up to one U16 grade. Makes sense in my opinion. I am in favour of re badging the 16swhites to U15s.

Moving Juniors to Sunday doesnt work imo, would work for a few clubs but not all. Need to take into consideration: not all clubs have college kids - so they wouldnt be 'stronger', some have womens sides that play sunday, Saturday/Sunday matches and the A grade one day competition having priority.

[beeroclock]

The district clubs will never merge whilst the governing body of grade cricket is the grade cricket council made up of representatives of each club....own club interests will always prevail. The SACA is trying to gain control of this by offering up to $90k per club for coaching with the director of coaching at each club to be a SACA employee and have a set standard of coaching across the system. However isn't this already achieved by the level 2 coaching course offered by SACA, I would suspect most grade coaches have a level 2 coaching certificate? Will the grade clubs ever give up this governing power, it would place them at the mercy of SACA direction?

just some thoughts:

Why not consider the move of juniors to a Sunday comp to enable more College kids to play grade cricket would this increase numbers?

Scrap D-grade, is basically an under 19's comp now with the odd overage player. If a player is 18 or 19 and still playing D-Grade is probably not up to grade cricket standard as tough as that sounds. Would clubs agree to this as will cost $$$.

It would be interesting to see what involvement Grade clubs have with community clubs in there area, i'd say it's very minimal if not non-existent.

Juniors on Sundays would be dopey as.
Community clubs are already pi$$ed off enough.
They struggle as is and it would send most clubs into having bugger all sides.
Without the community clubs having sides you have no one playing cricket and developing in their own time.

[heater31]

Why would they get rid of 14 whites? Would have thought 16 whites would go first.

TC i would suggest this is due to the current batch of U14s transitioning to U16s for season 2014/15. By cutting the number of U14 kids this year, next year less go up to one U16 grade. Makes sense in my opinion. I am in favour of re badging the 16swhites to U15s.

Moving Juniors to Sunday doesnt work imo, would work for a few clubs but not all. Need to take into consideration: not all clubs have college kids - so they wouldnt be 'stronger', some have womens sides that play sunday, Saturday/Sunday matches and the A grade one day competition having priority.

Doubtful any recommendation will be implemented for next year.

I know from my perspective we will be against all of them for this coming season as we have already selected junior squads.

[Footy Smart]

agreed, nothing will be implemented for 2014/15 but I think alot will actaully be taken on from this review.

I wonder if PL will go ahead ?