Quote Originally Posted by sammydog View Post
They actually need to make the rules and criteria consistent across all grades. Then there is no issues with depth of squads or moving between grades. It seems crazy to me to have promotion and relegation between grades with different requirements.

Whether that means tweaking third grade, dropping third grade Or just making all levels have a third grade I don’t know. Do you make it more like NL1 and force clubs to have some junior squads for development? Probably wouldn’t work given it seems some NL1 teams are also struggling to fill younger ages.

All Age is All Age. A lot of players have no interest in anything but All Age and it would be a crazy idea to restrict the numbers of All age teams at a club. Nothing wrong with a bunch of mates forming a team and having a kick. The upper All Age convos are actually quiet strong, but I don’t think there is any benefit in forcing them into a ZL set up. If the players wanted that, they would be there already.
Agree on the criteria problems, definitely a problem that needs to be fixed.

Yes Age is All Age, I think the issues are that there are just to many sides and to many comps across the board, ref issues every week, etc..need to compress it somehow.

A lot of players don't want to organize a grade team, but i bet you if some of the clubs committee's did the organizing they would play,(and yes I know they have a lot on there plate already, over 30 years on such committee's myself) You don't have to change things too much, lower side plays reggies, better side plays 1st's.
Still having a kick, still playing with mates, bonus is you play at the same time each week, the ideas just have to be sold better to the teams, but most of the problems come at committee/club level I believe not wanting to push the barrow and still look at it with a juniors mentality.
Again don't take it the wrong way, I am not saying all committees/clubs are like this also, some basically just don't know there is a zone comp, ones that do don't really understand how it all works and what it would take to make it work.