Quote Originally Posted by samcan View Post
Kids playing up is really more for the parents ego than anything. Seen it many times.
There are many players that can play up but they only fit in not stand out. I havent seen any superstars that really need this. Maybe in 9's there's a fair bit of discrepancy and staying up for a year can help but after that improvements are large. Even the bigger faster players need to work on other skills. Plenty of time to fill in for the age up in NPL Youth.
If a player isn't being challenged enough then they should 100% train with the squad who will. This for the boys train up and for the girls train with the appropriate aged boys. This is my reason, if a player is very good at 1v1 in their age group and goes past others in their team with ease, if you let them stay there they will get into bad habits by only performing this action to 80% of their ability, if they train against other players who a more of a challenge they have to perform the same action against someone who will make them have to be at their 100% best to have success.