WHEELS&DEALS wrote:Waterboy wrote:
After getting comments from all of the club delegates still at the meeting last night there wasn't much support for the Morphettville Park proposal. Next week at the junior delegates meeting the 3 options up for vote will be
1) No change
2) Go to U8, U10 and U12 in 2009
3) Go to U8, U10 and U12 in 2010
Moving to age groups will push some number of year 7s up to under 14 football a year early. These are the kids who would only play one year of under 14s with the 2/3, 4/5, 6/7 setup.
So does this mean that the Morphettville Park proposal has been voted on and won't be an option for this year? A few questions for anyone out there who cares about junior football.
1/ what do people think of having 20 teams in each grade for 2/3s, 4/5s and 6/7s?
2/ what are your veiws on clubs with dual sides and should they be caped.
3 If Morphettville Parks proposal was voted out, how would other club feel if there juniors left the SFL and went and played with the Metro sth League?????
The Morphettville Park proposal didn't seem to have a lot of supporters. One of the problems seen with it was that a number of smaller clubs wouldn't be able to field all 6 teams which would leave you with a lot of holes in the draw and make programming a huge task. The proposal looks good, for when the smaller clubs have stronger numbers in sub-juniors and can field teams in all grades.
I'll take a crack at some answers
1/ and 2/ taken together. Capping sounds like a good cure at first, spread all the kids out and have good numbers at all clubs. Except that the kids (or their parents) are left without a say. They will have clubs they want to play for because they live close by, they have friends or family who played there or they want to go to a big club so they get more wins. If you say to 5 kids, sorry but we're full here at Cove, you'll have to go to Lonsdale, how many of those kids would go down the road, how many would give up football, and maybe even sport altogether? I don't have much to do with amateurs, but I'm told that caping works there. Can anyone with first hand knowledge of amateur sub-juniors comment?
Dual sides then at least keep kids in football, but make life much more difficult for the smaller clubs. Lonsdale have lost sub-juniors from last season because their families don't feel that the smaller number of kids at practice makes for a good practice. As well there are clubs who haven't got quite the numbers that other clubs have and see the smaller clubs as ripe pickings to boost their own numbers to ensure that they get strong second sides.
3/ I for one wouldn't want to see Morphettville Park take their juniors out of the SFL. I would think that their proposal would come about in the future, but going with the Port Noarlunga proposal is the first step towards that.