Minotaur wrote:The gap between the section 2 A grade teams and the B grade teams is huge as well (apart from Morphy Parks).
Morphies aren't that close either, the ladder is misleading just because we beat the other B grade sides and won the 1 dayer. The % shows just how far off we are. Belair beat us inside a day and was 1 wicket from an outright, ANA beat us inside a day and ICC beat us outright. We're still a long way off the other A grade sides.
This year is the biggest gap I can remember, normally our B grade is around the mark against the A graders, this year we're not even close. What sums it up for me was the round before the break with 3 results inside a day then the heat week 2, all three losses were the B grade sides.
Minotaur wrote:With 17 A grade teams between sections 1 and 2 and another 4 A grade teams in section 3 (2 of which sit in the top 4 currently) maybe it is time to start looking at sections 1 and 2 being an A grade competition with a mandatory relegation system? Ultimately the fairest system would be playing 7 one dayers and 7 two dayers in an 8team section. This still has the same number of days play but means no one is disadvantaged in the draw (unless weather becomes an issue in season but we already have this). However there are implications in making such a move as well.
Question will be, after both Belair and ANA asking to go down a couple of seasons ago, will either be willing to go back up to Section 1 again?!
It got a bit of discussion before the season this year but the Section 1 / Section 1B proposal sounded interesting but I'm not sure how promotion / relegation would work. Also with Coves B grade in section 5 I doubt they would go for it. I think the first thing to sort out is the number of teams in each grade, 10 just makes an uneven draw. It needs to be 12 or 8 the whole way through. 8 would work with the number of A grade teams we have now but I know a lot of clubs are against more 1 dayers.