Quote Originally Posted by sammydog View Post
But these clubs have no issues with poaching players from clubs further down the ladder. The numbers of emails we get from SAP clubs asking us to promote their trials and send players over is amazing.

They cant have it both ways.



Which club is the non NPL/NL1 SAP club?

I agree the best kids will always seek out the big teams/clubs. But is the current set up makes it near on impossible to offer anything to compete.

We are in no danger of folding or needing to merge. Overall our junior numbers are on the rise, but it is an increase in the younger mini-roos we are seeing. Hanging onto them is the major issue. The club has a plan in place to continue our growth and we have aspirations to be a lot more than we currently are. The first thing is to try and stem the bleeding of juniors.

We know that from our U8's last season, 8 of the players have been confirmed in SAP programs for next year. Thats great that we have players developing to that point, but I would prefer to be able to offer to keep them at the club.

I realise that even if we had SAP, kids would look for the best club they could, but I also know we would be able to retain and develop a high number of our own players. And yes, the best of these would obviously end up playing NPL or NL1 and that's fine, but some would also flow into our senior system.
So you would be happy with u9 - u12 SAP teams. Cant see why zpl couldnt put 1 team in if they get the $$ and criteria. I suppose zl1 would then miss out and so on.