Quote Originally Posted by Jardelsimage View Post
Bottom line is his/there (being NNSWFA) push to have younger players (ex NPL/NPL1) playing ZL football, after the NPL clubs dump them after realizing they are not good enough and the cash cow of youth football runs out, most clubs in ZL if not all clubs already, have some younger ones coming through the system from the NPL, some might be playing 1st's but majority are playing 3rds and reggies.
May find it is some older young ones rather than young ones. From 2026 an NPL 1st grade team sheet will need 3 players under 23 and 2 players under 20. So there will be a need to move out some players in their mid to late 20s from NPL.

End of the day the main reason they are wanting to remove thirds is to allow for easy promotion/relegation between all tiers, ZL2 no longer have to now find a thirds when going up, NL1 don't have to find one when going down, ZL1 don't have to get rid of one when going up and ZL2 don't have to get rid of one when going down.

I also suspect long term plan is to bring in U18s for Zone League as well to also help teams be promoted and relegated.