Dutchy wrote:Down the Hill wrote:
Dutchy - putting aside the short term pain for clubs like Flaggies and Reynella with the move to U15 & U17.5, but will this ultimately prove to be the right decision for the SFL comp as a whole or don't you think it really matters.
Not sure there has been pain, but I can't see any improvement, if you look at pure numbers less kids are playing junior footy this year than last (even once you remove Brighton from equation).
u13's was supposed to soften the transition from subbles to Saturday footy, yet Cove (despite having 2 u12 teams in 2016) Marion and Lonsdale (good that they have 15's & 17's though) couldn't field teams.
From here, now the change has been made, you can only support it and hope it is the best decision long term, if we get to the stage of 10 clubs all having 5 teams on a Saturday and a strong Sunday junior comp, it will be worth it.
Excluding the three clubs that exited the Saturday comp this year, all the remaining clubs have exposure in the Senior Colts (U/17.5) and Junior Colts (U/15) except Marion. Obviously Port Noarlunga & Aldinga have combined in the Senior Colts but this is an improvement from last year where Port Noarlunga had no team at all. This has restored the participation levels from 2014 which had dwindled the past two years. In the U/15s all clubs except Marion have fielded a team (90.9%), up from 72.7% last year - this is the highest involvement since 2013. We have stabilised these age groups, and hopefully with the improved controls (mandated grades) this will only improve over the next couple of years.
The U/13s is the problem point, but I believe that is more as a result of the resistance to modify the Minis age groupings to odd years, as a result there is only a single year catchment for U/13s rather than 2 - this needs to be the next fix.
Personally could not give a stuff if there are less kids playing overall, we need to get the competition right so that all clubs are fielding the necessary teams. Absolutely no point in inflating numbers if the majority of those kids are tied up at 4-5 clubs and the comp falls apart in a few years. If the kids want to play, they will play - too much effort is spent on holding on to kids who are not really that interested anyway.
If any players are not playing this year as a result of the change of age groupings, they obviously were not that keen in the first place.
against the lions!
