Tight areas normally indicates opposition close by, prompting 1v1 scenarios. It's good that more and more players are meeting the 4 basic core skills criteria in the northern zone. My belief is we're still behind the Eastern zone, and need to strive continue to improve.hurlcrook wrote:"the reason a child won't get chosen is generally due to lack of close control in tight areas".matty2323 wrote:All excellent points. This was my first year involved, and as a Playford coach i was not allowed to have any involvement with the selection of the northern zone. Neither was the head coach. I cannot answer if he had private involvement, nor can i respond to the standard as i was judging the east zone at the other end of the pitch.N5 1BH wrote: Forums are for discussion and education are they not ? all I know of the northern zone SAP trials consists my experience of a couple of weeks ago at Burton and a few stories from past participants. I posted on this topic hoping to educate myself more about the Raiders issue as like any parent I want whats right for my kids, EQUAL access to all the opportunities and support that they are entitled to. Like it or not there is a real perception of nepotism and conflict of interest in the northern zone. I would prefer to be shown it is not true and all is well but no one has so I can only assume there is something in it. If Raiders are the de facto SAP team tell everyone so people can take their kids there for trials or go to a club in another zone instead of giving kids false hope and wasting everyone’s time at Burton the other week. My son played both Raiders U12 & U11 teams last year (and yours) and of course I agree their teams benefit from an excellent coaching program and for sure some of the kids are not only good enough for SAP they’ll be up there for the state side next year, and it’s a credit to the club. What put them above the other teams was not that all their players were superior in talent to all other players but the advanced coaching in spatial awareness, space and movement, making & blocking space etc. all essential team orientated skills. Your conclusion to a previous post “This isn't a "TEAM", its a SKILLS ACQUISITION PROGRAM” is ironic in the clear advantage the Raiders kids had in the small sided games, the fact they were familiar with the format (the SAP format) and played, in general, in the same groups using the team skills they had been coached. Being the better coached kids at 11 years old does not automatically give them more potential than all the other 11 year olds as even given this advantage, my opinion only but I saw a number of other kids with equal first touch and better ball retention and passing ability, adapting very quickly to complete strangers. Their perceived superiority was not fundamental skills more a familiarity with the task. Again my opinion only but I am certain from what I saw that even the 14 best of the others given the benefit of a summer of SAP coaching would at least be the equal to the Raiders squad . Without a level playing field and an open mind maybe an opportunity has been missed to maximize talent identification and develop the best and most deserving potential available in our zone for STIC next year.
Neither of the 2 lads from my side got in. They quickly identified that they were on par with the kids in a lot of areas, but really struggled with the 1v1 component. Not their fault, they came into federation at under 12 level and weren't exposed to SSGs and the 1v1 training a lot of other kids were.
Out of the 40 kids trialling per zone, probably 30-35 will have good first touch, ball retention skills etc. but that list gets shortened quickly when you facet in the 1v1 component. Remember, kids were judged on all 4 core skills groups (ball striking, running with the ball, first touch, 1v1). So you're probably right, many kids would have slotted in, probably ticket 3 of the 4 boxes and got themselves noticed, but its the kids that tick all the boxes that would have got selected for 15 spots.
So now that the non-croas have ticked that box, we better come up with the 1 v 1 excuse.
Some fantastic talent on display at the first session, even have a kid from the Riverland making a 6 hour round trip just to attend.
Hurlcrook, you seem to have something against Raiders... May i add they're one of the only clubs in the north that push 3 training sessions a week for their juniors. Thats 30-40 extra sessions a year. If kids join clubs at age 6, then by SAP that equates to around 240 extra club sessions. Every snide remark you make is just putting down the hard work of the kids that are committing themselves to extra sessions. We should be all striving to better ourselves as clubs, not trying to bring down those who have got better just so we dont feel left behind.