paul merson wrote:
The whole perpuse of clubs, in my opinion, is to produce players, players to fit into the clubs philosophy on how the games played which should be reflected by the first team.
All the junior teams should be making these kids as good as they can, so when they get to under 18's they can start moulding them into what the senior team needs, progression then goes on to the reserves where all players should be prepped ready to walk into their position in the seniors with out a hiccup.
What the FFSA has done has removed that urge to play for wins to get promoted, as has been mentioned in here and other topics.
I realise junior parents will probably not accept this and it surprises me Mat that you dont being on both sides of the fence, but thats the reality, I am a junior parent and senior player and to be junior coach soon, will I do it to get a team promoted or win the league? No chance, despite the fact my club is implimenting coaching KPI's which dont even mention results.
I think back to my junior days and yes the world did revolve around us, winning an under 17 cup was life or death, do I think playing for results all through my career hampered my development, YES.
I agree Dan, and at no stage do i put results/promotion ahead of player development. But as a junior coach at a club that dosen't have the attraction of Metro, Raiders, City, BEagles etc, im also clearly aware of how hard it is for us to attract players to the club, both at a junior and senior level. We rely on promoting junior players through the club and having them play senior football. 14-16 of the current first team squad are Playford juniors.
As a metro coach, you dont have to worry about results because your club naturally attracts more ambitious and higher quality talent that, if coached correctly, will be strong. We dont worry about results either at Playford, but we do value our more talented youth players, and if you take the need for competition away from those kids, they will seek it somewhere else. We're already fighting an up hill battle just to attract kids to the club, now we have to fight even harder to keep them there. What will happen to a club like Playford when they can no longer produce their own talent? They cant attract senior players, so they will cease to exist.
My first coaching role as u14's (and then 15's) has produced 1 current senior player, and 8 playing reserves for the club. Taking the under12's this season i scouted local E&D clubs. Elizabeth Downs, Munno Para etc. Would you like to attend trials at Playford? No thanks, im going to Para Hills, im going to Raiders.. and on top of that was Metro and Croydon. 4 years of coaching at the club and i've become aware of how hard it is to compete with these other clubs in terms of just getting kids out to trials, let alone developing them.
