Auburn???

[ShortHalfHead]

Read above post by Uconfuseme. Moorebank have been to hell and back as a club over the last four or so years, as has my club (NWJ) but with the right structures and the right people in place, we have worked our way back to being a competitive unit on and off the field. I hate to refer back to 2009 as it's a year I wish to forget for many reasons, all related to football, but we managed to run third in the Bob McConnell Trophy (Or the club championship, however I'm a traditionalist) to powerhouse clubs UTS (4 teams) & East Coast (5 teams) a feat we are very proud of, having only Senior & Reserves.

As a Johnny Come Lately to Sydney Footy, you won't realise the reliance both Nor-West (and formerly Hawkesbury) and Moorebank (Formerly South West Sydney) have had on the local Defence Force Bases of RAAF Richmond and Holsworthy for players. One week you'd have a world beating team on the park, the next, struggling for numbers. Band-aid solutions were provided, but as we all know, band-aids don't heal open wounds do they? So people with foresight, and a vision beyond the follwoing year, put these structures in place to ensure future survival.

Penriff are lucky to have such a good 18s structure in place, solid juniors in their direct catchment, and this should translate into a much more successful (I was going to use competitive, but they always have a red hot go out on the field) senior branch in coming years, provided the 18s stick around to play seniors, which, over the past few years, they have (Corless, Lockhart, Keane to name a few)

Not sure where you are from, but the outer western suburbs clubs (Nor-West, Penriff, Moorebank, to a lesser extent Parramatta) haven't been able to rely on keeping the front door open for recruits like the inner city clubs like UTS, Uni NSW/ES, or the coastal teams of Cronulla & Manly, so junior development out here is imperative. We are lucky to have so many locals in our team, and of the 50 odd players that played finals for us, at least 30, upwards of 35 are local products from Hawkesbury or Blacktown.

Will your username reflect the club you choose to play for?

PK has hit the nail on the head in his very insightful analysis of Western Sydney Football. The defence corp side of things has had a big affect on the clubs mentioned over the last decade with the transient lists. Kids tend to front up every year to play footy in juniors abut when their junior careers end, it's a tough gig to get them to jump to 18's footy, especially if their senior club is struggling for success or perceived to have cultural problems. Gotta give full credit to Moorebank for getting over this hurdle and having good people running the club. Same goes for the Jets, who had an amazing year and should be congratulated for only spending a season in div 3. I am sure I will be singing their praises in 18 months time when they get their 18's off the ground. Penrith chose the same path as the Jets in 2009 by dropping back a division to get some respectability back into the success process, although it didn't work to plan as hoped. The 18's programm at the Rams has been the highlight though and local juniors are starting to take notice with some even returning this year after leaving the club. The new management group contains mainly new faces with a wealth of experience in junior football.

But hey, how off topic am I getting ! Good luck to Auburn (and Maroubra for that matter). Hopefully Auburn blend into div 4 social footy with no dramas. The concerns are, as mentioned, that they will be able to forge a relationship with some junior clubs and expand, not just be a one team club with a short lifespan.

[ShortHalfHead]

Pardon me? Fill a few seconds of my time and tell me everything you know about Usyds work with the Newtown Swans, local primary schools and the holiday footy camps that are run on school breaks.

I am sure Syd Uni do put in some hard yards, just like most other clubs do.

It was interesting though, that they were the most vocal opponents of the Under 18's zoning laws as it restricted them from offering Santa Claus incentives to talented players in a 100k radius. They got a good sling however in getting quite a few private schools drawn into their catchment.

[Shotties]

It was interesting though, that they were the most vocal opponents of the Under 18's zoning laws

Whereas I agree with them. Who wants to decide where they play anyway? Me personally, I'd much rather be playing at one club still instead of moving teams to play with mates who were in a different comp.

as it restricted them from offering Santa Claus incentives to talented players in a 100k radius.

I missed it the first time, run your list of players and what incentives they were offered by me again.

[ShortHalfHead]

Whereas I agree with them. Who wants to decide where they play anyway? Me personally, I'd much rather be playing at one club still instead of moving teams to play with mates who were in a different comp.


I missed it the first time, run your list of players and what incentives they were offered by me again.

Pretty well all here, Shotties. Ruminate at your own leisure

Sydney Uni + Collingwood U/18 Team - RedandWhiteOnline (RWO) Messageboard

[Shotties]

Pretty well all here, Shotties. Ruminate at your own leisure

Sydney Uni + Collingwood U/18 Team - RedandWhiteOnline (RWO) Messageboard

I was hoping for something a little more based in fact. Just as a starting point, the club doesn't have the authority to grant scholarships.

Edit: just to clarify, obviously not the NSW scholarships, I was referring to the UAI bumping and instantaneous access to a course that apparently occured

[ShortHalfHead]

I was hoping for something a little more based in fact. Just as a starting point, the club doesn't have the authority to grant scholarships.

Edit: just to clarify, obviously not the NSW scholarships, I was referring to the UAI bumping and instantaneous access to a course that apparently occured

One would assume that the uni would take recommendations from the club re scholarships. Have they ever given financial assitance to any athlete in one of their clubs, I may well ask? So it's rather pointless trying to look for a technical out.

The UAI bumping was offered, maybe not authorised but offered. Heard it from a few parents. One already had a daughter at the uni and had a one on one chat after training about how they did that. Was told that it would involve an interview etc but exceptions are made. Further confirmed by a friends daughter that got into a vet course at Wagga despite being just below the break line. It happens, thought if you were involved you would have been aware.
But I don't plan to go through the whole debacle anymore. Well done to Uni on winning the CC. I was at the GF and cheered them on (as well as our locals). They deserved to win and their presence wasn't the kids problem. They played a good style of footy and were obviously well coached.

Getting back to my original statement though, Shooties, can you let me know why Uni were so fiercly opposed the the 18's zoning laws?

[mountainsofpain]

Getting back to my original statement though, Shooties, can you let me know why Uni were so fiercly opposed the the 18's zoning laws?

No doubt the reason was because it would mean the potential demise of the goose that lays the golden eggs.

It is far easier to put an Under 18s side together by pillaging existing talent from other clubs and areas in Sydney rather than starting a side from scratch from your own area. And winning a premiership then becomes a formality when an incompetent administration then puts said side in the lower Under 18s division.

It reflects the whole mentality of the University clubs as opposed to many of the non-uni clubs.

The Uni clubs (in particular the three inner city ones - Sydney Uni, Uni of NSW pre-merger and UTS) were able to be incredibly successful in senior ranks by attracting players from an extremely sizeable player pool of existing senior players. They never needed to have juniors coming through.

The non-uni clubs in contrast more often than not did not have such a player pool to choose from - so they recognized the need to get juniors through as much as possible. Certainly different clubs put in more effort than others, but I can't think of too many of these clubs who didn't at least have an Under 18 side in the past, say, ten years.

So when Sydney Uni put an Under 18 side in last year, it is hardly a surprise that they adopted the approach they did, which was tapping into an existing player base to form the side rather than put the work into developing one from the ground up. It was simply a reflection of the approach which had been so successful at the senior level.

And it is hardly a surprise that they then objected to a proposal which could potentially put a spanner in the works for them.

If Sydney Uni has to form and operate an Under 18s side in the same way that the other clubs do (which I hope is the outcome of these zoning laws), it won't hurt them one little bit. In fact it will welcome them to the real world.

[Shotties]

But I don't plan to go through the whole debacle anymore.

Fantastic, I'll take this to PM, then.

Getting back to my original statement though, Shooties, can you let me know why Uni were so fiercly opposed the the 18's zoning laws?

Well, primarily because it gives the club two clubs with under 12s teams and some Union focused private schools.

Now to quote Lupe Fiasco, don't get it twisted. The club doesn't resent working with these clubs and schools by any stretch. As you so nobly conceded before the club already does a lot of work already with clinics and so forth, but to gain two clubs with under 12s /14s teams whilst other teams get upto and over four firmly established junior clubs with multiple under sixteens teams and have everyone nod their head, stroke their chin and say "Yep, this system is much better than the play where you want system we had before" is a bit strange.

Secondary to that, it also cuts off another method through which players come to the club: They attend the Uni. What if first year students who played juniors elsewhere wanted to play for the Uni?

Me personally? I just think zoning is a crock of @@@@ and there's a reason they got rid of it years ago.

[Pace To Burn]

Fantastic, I'll take this to PM, then.

Well, primarily because it gives the club two clubs with under 12s teams and some Union focused private schools.

Now to quote Lupe Fiasco, don't get it twisted. The club doesn't resent working with these clubs and schools by any stretch. As you so nobly conceded before the club already does a lot of work already with clinics and so forth, but to gain two clubs with under 12s /14s teams whilst other teams get upto and over four firmly established junior clubs with multiple under sixteens teams and have everyone nod their head, stroke their chin and say "Yep, this system is much better than the play where you want system we had before" is a bit strange.

Secondary to that, it also cuts off another method through which players come to the club: They attend the Uni. What if first year students who played juniors elsewhere wanted to play for the Uni?

Me personally? I just think zoning is a crock of @@@@ and there's a reason they got rid of it years ago.

Would like to know how many of these this is a case for. Even if it is each premier league club can only nominate 30 names that have to apply if they want to play elsewhere you muppett, so all it means is you cant poach the cream of the crop hey

[ShortHalfHead]

Would like to know how many of these this is a case for. Even if it is each premier league club can only nominate 30 names that have to apply if they want to play elsewhere you muppett, so all it means is you cant poach the cream of the crop hey

Excellent point, Pace. Still plenty of players who haven't been "listed". Will Uni be so aggresive in targetting these players so they have a place to play?

Ofr course Shotties thinks that the listing is a COS. Going along "company" lines there. They wouldn't have introduced it except for the underhanded tactics of SU

[Shotties]

Would like to know how many of these this is a case for.

My language was clumsy there I didn't mean they had four teams each with multiple teams, I meant multiple teams ergo multiple sets of under 16s, but since you asked according to the pathways

St George has 7 sets of 16s to draw from, North has 10, East Coast has 5 that I got upto before I grew bored with this exercise. Point is, this zoning has encouraged a lot of head nodding in agreement saying how fair it is.

Now obviously I'm an intellectual pygmy when compared to the power players of the Sydney AFL who post on this site but I struggle to see how such a set up is fair when some clubs have pools literally 10 times that of others and some clubs won't even have kids graduating from 16s for another few seasons. I'm open to being enlightened but please try and speak slowly.

Edit: I should reclarify, I'm more than happy to take this to PMs and avoid hijacking the thread, or even having these posts moved to another thread.

[mountainsofpain]

Now obviously I'm an intellectual pygmy when compared to the power players of the Sydney AFL who post on this site but I struggle to see how such a set up is fair when some clubs have pools literally 10 times that of others and some clubs won't even have kids graduating from 16s for another few seasons. I'm open to being enlightened but please try and speak slowly.

Not all clubs have had the benefit of running an Under 18s side from multiple junior feeder clubs over the years. Some have run Under 18s from only the one junior club (eg Hawkesbury, S-W Sydney and Penrith), others (eg Parramatta) have not had a junior feeder club at all until recent times.

I guess fairness is in the eye of the beholder. To many any advantage some clubs may now enjoy in juniors would simply be making up for the enormous benefits inner city clubs like Sydney Uni have enjoyed for years from the sheer size of the senior player pool they have had at their disposal.

[DLH]

Penriff are lucky to have such a good 18s structure in place, solid juniors in their direct catchment, and this should translate into a much more successful (I was going to use competitive, but they always have a red hot go out on the field) senior branch in coming years, provided the 18s stick around to play seniors, which, over the past few years, they have (Corless, Lockhart, Keane to name a few)

Great post Pekay, summed it all up very well.

From Penrith's point of view, we've gone down a similar path to yourselves and Moorebank over the past couple of years and realised that the demographic hurdles that were in our way were never going to disappear, and that we needed to encourage junior people (players and administrators) to take on an increasing role in order to survive and eventually flourish (Shotties, this may explain some of the angst from some posters re the U/18's issue, by targetting our best youngsters you were actively putting in jeopardy these club's chances of long term sustainability).

While it may not be apparent externally, we are light years ahead of where we were 4-5 years ago in many respects (although we did have a much stronger senior side then). We have a our own U/18's side which is improving in results and reputation amongst the local junior community year by year, and we have a new management structure with a number of people from junior backgrounds involved, and in the past few months these guys have improved our sponsorship position enormously which means we no longer have any financial issues, which was certainly not the case even two years ago.

At the end of the day we are still a club that operates in Div 3 and 4 which is hardly cause for celebration, but like the Jets and Moorebank I think that structurally we have our house in order which is a good place to start.

[Mug Punter]

Would like to know how many of these this is a case for. Even if it is each premier league club can only nominate 30 names that have to apply if they want to play elsewhere you muppett, so all it means is you cant poach the cream of the crop hey

Pretty much nails it IMO. Will stop poaching but there should still be enough talent for the Uni to develop an U18 program. Players can still go to Sydney Uni in their second year if they still wish to play there.

If they hadn't been so gungho, and I think Collingwood (spit) had a fair role there, then this would not have been necessary.

[Mug Punter]

My language was clumsy there I didn't mean they had four teams each with multiple teams, I meant multiple teams ergo multiple sets of under 16s, but since you asked according to the pathways

St George has 7 sets of 16s to draw from, North has 10, East Coast has 5 that I got upto before I grew bored with this exercise. Point is, this zoning has encouraged a lot of head nodding in agreement saying how fair it is.

Now obviously I'm an intellectual pygmy when compared to the power players of the Sydney AFL who post on this site but I struggle to see how such a set up is fair when some clubs have pools literally 10 times that of others and some clubs won't even have kids graduating from 16s for another few seasons. I'm open to being enlightened but please try and speak slowly.

Edit: I should reclarify, I'm more than happy to take this to PMs and avoid hijacking the thread, or even having these posts moved to another thread.

To use an example, North Shore can only nominate 30 players. I believe that any players from the previous U18 season who played a certaion number of games (9?) automatically are on the list. Let's say that is 10. That leaves 20 spots to be filled by 10 teams. Clearly it will only apply to the top level juniors.