Grassroots Football

[londonboy]

For anyone frustrated with the lack of referees provided for SAP games, the below information from NNSW Football might be of interest:

"There is no component in the registration fees for SAP under 9 and 10 players for match fees for official referees. This is why official referees are not appointed to these fixtures. It has always been the case that club referees, or game leaders, and not official referees, have officiated on these matches.

It is also not correct that official referees officiate on community football Mini-Roos matches from the under 8 age group upwards. Community football clubs appoint their own people as game leaders to referee Mini-Roos under 8 and 9 matches. Official referees only officiate on under 10 and 11 Mini-Roos matches, where there are enough official referees to be appointed to them"

What I find interesting here is that u10 in community football have official referees appointed to them, but not u10 SAP. My own experience of u8 community football this season is that we have had a non-parent ref for every game.

I know there are some club officials involved with SAP who contribute to these forums. I am curious whether the referee issue has been raised by clubs in SAP with NNSWF? It seems every week there seems to be some problem with refereeing. It occurs to me by NNSWF perhaps withholding a small portion of SAP fees from each club and using this to create a pool of refs everyone wins. With the SAP games all being at 'hubs' it appears logistically easy to arrange. Am I missing something?

[Captain_Carl]

What are everyone's thoughts on SAP vs NET? Is the quality much better in SAP than NET? What are the benefits of NET over SAP, or visa versa?

About a month ago Macquarie teams selected for state championships played against select NET teams.
In 11’s the NET team won easily (5-0 or 5-1) but in the U12’s the opposite occurred. Macquarie won 6-1. Take from that what you will.

[Aegon]

I know there are some club officials involved with SAP who contribute to these forums. I am curious whether the referee issue has been raised by clubs in SAP with NNSWF? It seems every week there seems to be some problem with refereeing. It occurs to me by NNSWF perhaps withholding a small portion of SAP fees from each club and using this to create a pool of refs everyone wins. With the SAP games all being at 'hubs' it appears logistically easy to arrange. Am I missing something?

I would love to know what NNSWF are doing with the huge chunk they take from the SAP fees? There is minimal supervision even at Speers Point. The clubs are doing everything themselves or with parent volunteers so it definitely begs the question as to what NNSWF are contributing to.

[plague]

For anyone frustrated with the lack of referees provided for SAP games, the below information from NNSW Football might be of interest:

"There is no component in the registration fees for SAP under 9 and 10 players for match fees for official referees. This is why official referees are not appointed to these fixtures. It has always been the case that club referees, or game leaders, and not official referees, have officiated on these matches.

It is also not correct that official referees officiate on community football Mini-Roos matches from the under 8 age group upwards. Community football clubs appoint their own people as game leaders to referee Mini-Roos under 8 and 9 matches. Official referees only officiate on under 10 and 11 Mini-Roos matches, where there are enough official referees to be appointed to them"

What I find interesting here is that u10 in community football have official referees appointed to them, but not u10 SAP. My own experience of u8 community football this season is that we have had a non-parent ref for every game.

I know there are some club officials involved with SAP who contribute to these forums. I am curious whether the referee issue has been raised by clubs in SAP with NNSWF? It seems every week there seems to be some problem with refereeing. It occurs to me by NNSWF perhaps withholding a small portion of SAP fees from each club and using this to create a pool of refs everyone wins. With the SAP games all being at 'hubs' it appears logistically easy to arrange. Am I missing something?

just on this. My kid is in SAP 10's now and went through it last year in 9's.
Ive watched a lot of SAP games (not just my own kids team), and reffed quite a few.
Ive never, and i mean NEVER seen a game 'decided' by a ref.
Ive seen maybe 2 or 3 occasions where ive wondered if the ref was competent enough, but on every one of those occasions the 'better' team has 'won'.

The only time ive seen any issues with refs is with moron coaches (and the occasional......very occasional, moron parent) complaining about decisions. Mind you, I've never seen a coach interject mid match to say "yo, my kid was offisde then, chalk that goal off". No, its always a moan about their kids getting shafted by the evil refs.
If NNSW had Pierluigi Collina out there these same moron coaches would still complain.

More games have been lost by poor coaching of the kids than any refs these past few years thats for sure.

Id rather NNSW invest more money in coaching programs and enforce some sort of standard for the SAP program than worry about refs for these early years. The kids are gonna get more out of a better educated coach than a better educated ref at this age.

Also, last year at some Magic hub games, Magic offered some of their youth players to ref SAP games instead of parents. Im not sure if these kids were training to be refs, or whether the club just wanted their youth players to see all sides of the game, but it was a cool initiative and of course they all did a great job.

Also, again again again, although the kids know if they won or lost, results dont matter in this program. So instead of complaining to refs, these coaches just need to coach their kids and their kids will get better.


having said that, right next to the rule sheet is the code of conduct sheet. Every parent, player and coach has access to it, but i doubt many of them have read it. most dont understand the offside interpretation or the restart rule. if coaches and parents arent gonna pay the respect to me by reading those sheets, then i sure as hell aint entertaining their thoughts on any decisions i make.

[Aegon]

just on this. My kid is in SAP 10's now and went through it last year in 9's.
Ive watched a lot of SAP games (not just my own kids team), and reffed quite a few.
Ive never, and i mean NEVER seen a game 'decided' by a ref.
Ive seen maybe 2 or 3 occasions where ive wondered if the ref was competent enough, but on every one of those occasions the 'better' team has 'won'.

The only time ive seen any issues with refs is with moron coaches (and the occasional......very occasional, moron parent) complaining about decisions. Mind you, I've never seen a coach interject mid match to say "yo, my kid was offisde then, chalk that goal off". No, its always a moan about their kids getting shafted by the evil refs.
If NNSW had Pierluigi Collina out there these same moron coaches would still complain.

More games have been lost by poor coaching of the kids than any refs these past few years thats for sure.

Id rather NNSW invest more money in coaching programs and enforce some sort of standard for the SAP program than worry about refs for these early years. The kids are gonna get more out of a better educated coach than a better educated ref at this age.

Also, last year at some Magic hub games, Magic offered some of their youth players to ref SAP games instead of parents. Im not sure if these kids were training to be refs, or whether the club just wanted their youth players to see all sides of the game, but it was a cool initiative and of course they all did a great job.

Also, again again again, although the kids know if they won or lost, results dont matter in this program. So instead of complaining to refs, these coaches just need to coach their kids and their kids will get better.


having said that, right next to the rule sheet is the code of conduct sheet. Every parent, player and coach has access to it, but i doubt many of them have read it. most dont understand the offside interpretation or the restart rule. if coaches and parents arent gonna pay the respect to me by reading those sheets, then i sure as hell aint entertaining their thoughts on any decisions i make.

Our clubs coaches have been instructed to teach the kids to play the offside rule to the extent where I have witnessed the coaches call to the game leader to blow offside.
There is no direction within the club as to who undertakes the game leader task as it has been 100% pushed back to the clubs, what our teams have been doing for the majority of games has been leveraging off the NPL Youth players to do the game leader activity. This doesn't work when we have games at the same or similar times. This season I'd say 70-80 % of our games have been done by boys from the 13's or 14's NPL and last week there was a boy from the Jets Youth doing one of the games.

I agree with the above though, there are several coaches/managers out there that take the officiating way to seriously and there is a huge disparity in interpretation on how to play offside. We had one coach blow up saying that there is no offside when their boy up front kept getting pinged for it.

It's funny, because the crowd and bench seem to be much better behaved when it's the youth players officiating the games, all instances of poor sideline behavior this year has come when it's a parent volunteer.

[Aegon]

Ive never, and i mean NEVER seen a game 'decided' by a ref.
Ive seen maybe 2 or 3 occasions where ive wondered if the ref was competent enough, but on every one of those occasions the 'better' team has 'won'.

Just on this point. I don't think there is any issue with refs deciding matches. It's more about inconsistency in rule interpretations and instructions from the clubs. Add to that a general reluctance from parents to do the games due to sideline criticism.

[plague]

Our clubs coaches have been instructed to teach the kids to play the offside rule to the extent where I have witnessed the coaches call to the game leader to blow offside.
There is no direction within the club as to who undertakes the game leader task as it has been 100% pushed back to the clubs, what our teams have been doing for the majority of games has been leveraging off the NPL Youth players to do the game leader activity. This doesn't work when we have games at the same or similar times. This season I'd say 70-80 % of our games have been done by boys from the 13's or 14's NPL and last week there was a boy from the Jets Youth doing one of the games.

I agree with the above though, there are several coaches/managers out there that take the officiating way to seriously and there is a huge disparity in interpretation on how to play offside. We had one coach blow up saying that there is no offside when their boy up front kept getting pinged for it.

It's funny, because the crowd and bench seem to be much better behaved when it's the youth players officiating the games, all instances of poor sideline behavior this year has come when it's a parent volunteer.

ok, a couple of points here.
Why do youth players ref your games? Is it because of a direct request from your club or lack of volunteers from the parents?
Because as parents we need to be real careful on that one.

As for the offside rule. Its on the sheet, its written down. I agree it is up for some interpretation, but only on the key word. Blatant. I read it and went to the NNSW tech directors at training and asked them how they wanted it reffed. They explained to me pretty straight forward how they wanted it done and thats how i ref it. It was a 2 min conversation they were only too happy to have.

In the past ive told coaches from other teams before the games how im gonna ref it just to get it clear. if during the games they then want to argue well thats not my problem.
For coaches to think there is either no offside or it is the same as FIFA rules again shows the lack of respect they have for the program, and goes back to my bigger point of a lot of coaches not having the knowledge or ability to coach these programs.

[londonboy]

just on this. My kid is in SAP 10's now and went through it last year in 9's.
Ive watched a lot of SAP games (not just my own kids team), and reffed quite a few.
Ive never, and i mean NEVER seen a game 'decided' by a ref.
Ive seen maybe 2 or 3 occasions where ive wondered if the ref was competent enough, but on every one of those occasions the 'better' team has 'won'.

The only time ive seen any issues with refs is with moron coaches (and the occasional......very occasional, moron parent) complaining about decisions. Mind you, I've never seen a coach interject mid match to say "yo, my kid was offisde then, chalk that goal off". No, its always a moan about their kids getting shafted by the evil refs.
If NNSW had Pierluigi Collina out there these same moron coaches would still complain.

More games have been lost by poor coaching of the kids than any refs these past few years thats for sure.

Id rather NNSW invest more money in coaching programs and enforce some sort of standard for the SAP program than worry about refs for these early years. The kids are gonna get more out of a better educated coach than a better educated ref at this age.

Also, last year at some Magic hub games, Magic offered some of their youth players to ref SAP games instead of parents. Im not sure if these kids were training to be refs, or whether the club just wanted their youth players to see all sides of the game, but it was a cool initiative and of course they all did a great job.

Also, again again again, although the kids know if they won or lost, results dont matter in this program. So instead of complaining to refs, these coaches just need to coach their kids and their kids will get better.


having said that, right next to the rule sheet is the code of conduct sheet. Every parent, player and coach has access to it, but i doubt many of them have read it. most dont understand the offside interpretation or the restart rule. if coaches and parents arent gonna pay the respect to me by reading those sheets, then i sure as hell aint entertaining their thoughts on any decisions i make.

I definitely don’t have as much experience as you with SAP, but it’s not the ‘result’ poor referees effect it’s the game itself. Kids, coaches, parents can handle occasional poor decisions, but lots, especially with perceived bias thrown in, can change an atmosphere pretty quick. The Magic / Jaffas use of youth players is perfect- people are much more likely to get onto a parent than a teenager. Perhaps this is the simple way forward? It will need buy in from all clubs - and availability of refs of course.

My main point was around u10s community having officials but not u10 SAP. This surprised me as SAP is meant to be the gold standard, yet is not afforded the same independent refs as community. It doesn’t make sense to me.

[Aegon]

ok, a couple of points here.
Why do youth players ref your games? Is it because of a direct request from your club or lack of volunteers from the parents?
Because as parents we need to be real careful on that one.

Because they want to, are motivated and tend to control the game with little to no influence from the sidelines. No direction from the club. I think one of the boys who does our games is actually a refereeing trainer.

As for the offside rule. Its on the sheet, its written down. I agree it is up for some interpretation, but only on the key word. Blatant. I read it and went to the NNSW tech directors at training and asked them how they wanted it reffed. They explained to me pretty straight forward how they wanted it done and thats how i ref it. It was a 2 min conversation they were only too happy to have.

Completely agree, that's how it is interpreted at our club. The game leaders are told a few key things before they officiate any game:

• Stop play for injuries
• Pull up blatent offsides
• All free kicks are indirect
• Enforce the drop off rule

There is a problem with either NNSWF communicating this, or the clubs or coaches enforcing it.

[plague]

I think one of the boys who does our games is actually a refereeing trainer.

yeah i think these type of people are the best source.
i mean, if they are out at the facility, why not combine ref courses with SAP games? If refs are doing the theory, get them on the park a few weekends a season to get some practice in. Smaller field, decent level of play. Once qualified, move them into the general pool of refs.

[Negative Police]

About a month ago Macquarie teams selected for state championships played against select NET teams.
In 11’s the NET team won easily (5-0 or 5-1) but in the U12’s the opposite occurred. Macquarie won 6-1. Take from that what you will.

The NET rep is a collective of all 8 teams into an A & B team. The 2 Macq teams were divided into A & B. 11's Net were awesome.

Some of those nets kids would make it easily into SAP teams but maybe their progression is just as good where they are currently.

[Goatscheese]

What I find interesting here is that u10 in community football have official referees appointed to them, but not u10 SAP. My own experience of u8 community football this season is that we have had a non-parent ref for every game.

Community players (or rather parents) pay ref fees as part of their rego, SAP don't as indicated in the email you mentioned.

What's worse is that all these interdistrict players from U9 to All Age pay for ref fees and yet have games where there is no ref and yet there is no refund from the associations.

[Aegon]

Community players (or rather parents) pay ref fees as part of their rego, SAP don't as indicated in the email you mentioned.

What's worse is that all these interdistrict players from U9 to All Age pay for ref fees and yet have games where there is no ref and yet there is no refund from the associations.

As I have mentioned before, I'd love to know what NNSWF are doing with the cut the take from SAP registration. The amount of money they take is twice what his full registration fees were in Under 8's.

And TBH with fees with uniform already above $1000 if you added ref payments (22 Rounds, 11 Counted as home, 2 games per home round = 22 games. $10 per game. $220 more per teams. /that by 10 players and you end up with $22 extra) it would make minimal difference but would be well worth the investment.

[Captain_Carl]

The Macquarie U12’s are very polished. They even had a narrow loss to the U12 Jets 2-1 in an 80 minute trial game. The NPL clubs should take note as most U13 teams this season have struggled to compete with them (the Jets).

[Aegon]

The Under 11 selected NET team has beaten the Newcastle and Macquarie state championship teams quite convincingly in recent games. Good little squad there.

[Retired01]

We have now had 2 rounds of the split SAP competition. Jaffas had wins all round against New Lambton last weekend in the 10s
Have results changed much? are they still lopsided?

Jaffas and Edgy were washed out on the weekend
Does anyone have other results? Or are the usual suspects still way ahead?

[Aegon]

We have now had 2 rounds of the split SAP competition. Jaffas had wins all round against New Lambton last weekend in the 10s
Have results changed much? are they still lopsided?

Jaffas and Edgy were washed out on the weekend
Does anyone have other results? Or are the usual suspects still way ahead?

The New Lambton 9's were very strong. I think they had a clean sweep against the Jaffas 9's or there might have been a draw somewhere. Close games all round from what I saw.

In the 9's there are a bunch of teams that are quite strong:
Olympic, Magic, Jaffas & New Lambton all have 2 strong teams. Lake Macquarie have 1 strong team.

Edgeworth, Maitland, Valentine & Charlestown are slightly below the 4 teams above but are capable on their day. All look to have 2 evenly spread teams. Adamstown & Singleton have 1 team only and are at this level also.

The Association girls teams, South Cardiff, Weston, Wallsend & the 2nd Lake Macquarie team are not as polished as the teams above, but are developing well.

[plague]

We have now had 2 rounds of the split SAP competition. Jaffas had wins all round against New Lambton last weekend in the 10s
Have results changed much? are they still lopsided?

Does anyone have other results? Or are the usual suspects still way ahead?

I watched one of the 'better' 10's clubs go round recently and 'results' is a good word for you to use there.

one of their teams featured prob 3 of the better players in the program, were very well coached and played really really well. they scored a few early and had to endure a pretty decent comeback from the other team. skill level was fantastic. great game. for one of the best teams in the comp to 'win' by only a goal or 2 was good for everyone. and to see the kids mingling after the game knowing they'd all been in a good contest was fantastic. as, mind you, seeing the 2 coaches have a good 20 min chat and both coaches seek out players to congratulate them from both teams was awesome. for everyone concerned that type of game, rather than yet another 15-0 flogging, is what is gonna make these kids better players.

in the other game the team from that same club just booted long balls despite being under the pump for good parts of the game. their skill level was not at the level of their other team, yet (i think) they scored more goals because they relied on getting 1 v 1 in the backfield and had a few go their way. when the opposition beat their man one kid in particular just grabbed shirts or kicked legs out. he must have given away 6 free kicks on one half just hacking away. but it worked, the game was stopped for the free kick and everyone got a chance to reset

one team in that club seemed to be the epitome of the program, great skill, good attitude and fair play. the other was hell bent on winning and that was all that mattered. funny part is, once it goes to 1 team per club in the future, the kids in the 'lesser' team are all prob gonna get shafted and i dont think much of it will be their fault.

i still think the 'better' clubs should be running 2 teams next year because casting this many kids out at this age cant be good for the future. the top 6 clubs in the program can all support and nurture 2 teams in order to get the best out of them and help them get to the next level. but yeah, some of these teams have to start having a look at what they are doing. because some of these kids are being done a disservice.

[plague]

We have now had 2 rounds of the split SAP competition.

i take it your youngun is part of the Jaffas program.
legit question as a parent, do you have any concerns over the amount of extra work the kids are doing at the moment? is it true they are doing extra training and games? do you see this as being sustainable all the way through til puberty?

im not knocking the Jaffas, at all. i just found it interesting that they seem to be doing so much extra than all the other clubs. or is it not that bad? always wondered from a parents perspective thats all.

[onlooker]

Does anyone have other results? Or are the usual suspects still way ahead?

HV 11’s girls playing in the 9’s have had two weekends of good hard fought games..

With a draw and a win over Weston and a narrow loss and a win over Lake Macquarie last weekend. When my daughter joined the team in round 6 they were getting beaten by some big scores. Towards the back end of the first half they started to get a few close matches but have to say the last two weekends of games have been the best on most even games I have seen them play. Which is great all round..