P Diddy said it, "he ain't, going no where, he ain't, going nowhere, cos we bad boys for life"
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Olympic 18s played there whole season that way. Kick it long was obviously what they were being coached if not then they weren?t being coached at all.
Redacted. Is a pest. Blew in from QLD somewhere, very little playing pedigree, likes players who pay his training fees, gets poor results.
Thats the evidence ive seen. Zane much much better for older lads. Pepps seems to get the best out of youth although not in the system any more
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Someone told me over the weekend that Charlestown has lost another crop of their SAP product to Valentine.
If true, that's 3 years in a row...they really need to stop their coaches talking to anyone in an orange shirt!
(Remember people, "Orange man bad" 😂)
More interesting to consider though, is Valentine's SAP product so poor that they have needed to poach both coaches and teams going into 13s for the last 3 intakes of 13s...and why are they picking on Charlestown :P
I understand the first year was because they told 12s coach he could become the 13s coach but he wouldn't be allowed to pick the team.
Second and third year, Valentine certainly are approaching Charlestown players, but you do have to wonder what is going on in Valo JDL land for them to not want to keep their players. Is it coaching, or selections or just Valentine thinking they can get better players.
I understand the top 3 Charlestown 12s have gone to another League 8 club that isn't Valentine but they all felt mistreated at Charlestown.
Maybe the other question to ask is why those kids want to leave Charlestown to begin with?If its just because they want to play Div A then theres not much Azzurri can do at the moment.I just hope they realise that if they arent Div A quality players then they will be the ones getting replaced.Thats how it is.
Lets also not pretend that the poaching is limited to Valentine.Good to see Rosebuds have worked how how to fill their teams for next year too.
Of course there's lots of poaching end of season, few seem to target an entire team though 😂
As for the Charlestown issue.
My son played there last year...I understand their problems (there are a few they could work on, just like any other club TBF) what I will note as the most significant was the inability/unwillingness to articulate a plan of how they were going to secure a place back in tier 1 football.
What they could offer to "subsidise" the reduced development opportunity (while they were charging the same as when they had tier 1 football to offer...something like having some of their big name first graders do sessions, etc)
This would have gone a long way to have more kids stay. Something Lakes did very well.
Other thought: They seemed to be stuck in a mindset that the best kids should "want" to play for them...that they should be seen as a 'destination club' based only on their history they had had. They need to grow beyond that, and I hope they do, and I hope they have some success.
My son played at Azzurri this year and found the club for the most part pretty good. TD had very little to do with the younger age groups and there was the usual politics you see at most clubs. Some of the team have left to play div 1 (Valo were chasing a lot of the players and at least 3 have ended up there) and one player has secured an NPL1 position in Sydney. They were only 3 wins short of Div 1. Next year will be interesting to see how they go.
There have been a few clubs with this attitude over the years and they have all ended up going same way.Im surprised they didnt end up in Div 1 next year and my lads mates who play there were all very happy with their experience.While no club has a divine right to be in Div 1 I do hope Azzurri are back there sooner rather than later.
Charlestown seem to be the feeder club for Valentine, Valo's U13s teams made up of Charlestown JDL kids for the past three year, and now supplementing these teams with additional Charlestown kids.
I too was surprised they didn't end up in Div 1 but they choked a bit in League B giving Cooks Hill some relief.
Which youth clubs encourage kids to play up age groups if they are good enough and which clubs are more focused on doing whatever it takes to win premierships?