Originally Posted by
AVB
I think we need to stop blaming the individual clubs for this and start considering that there may be greater issues at play here that need addressing such as the competitiveness of the competitions.
I'm sure all clubs are doing their absolute best to attract players in all age groups but if there aren’t enough players interested in playing then what can clubs do? Anyone who thinks that clubs not fielding teams has anything to do with the club not working hard enough or not prioritising it enough simply wrong.
The u16s age group is clearly the biggest example here - 3 teams in the NL1 and 1 team in the NPL haven’t been able to field a team. Anecdotally there was a few clubs who were struggling in NPL to fill their u16s team until Cooks Hill withdrew and the players they had were redistributed. Everyone’s favourite example of the best NL1 club New Lambton have even been advertising his week for players for their u16s team, so they can't be flush either.
To NNSW credit they have clearly identified issues here as well and are engaging clubs on how to restructure the Youth grades across the board to make it more competitive.
