my theory on why the league has gone down in quality over the last 5 or so years is simple - they got rid of reserve grade, and made it under23s.

back when i was playing 19s, and there was no age-capping on reserve grade, we had a few older heads who wanted to be at the club because they loved it & they nurtured us young 19s and we learnt from the former best & became better players because of it. nowadays, the oldies feel pushed out of the competition. plus a lot of clubs can't find room for them, as they want their returning-from-injury-first-graders free spots to play reserves to get back into it (but when those first graders are out injured, there's no experience to replace them, it's all younger guys). and so the step up from 19s to reserves nowadays - there's no old heads to take you under their wings. it's all the guys you've been playing with for the last few years. and i've noticed the physicality of reserve grade has gone, and it promotes weaker, fragile first graders.

i predict if they went back to reserve grade with no age-capping, 5 years from now the whole competition would be a hell of a lot better off.

imo