Great Flinders FL have long had at least a four-year age gap with each club supplying an Under 16 and Under 12 team.
In our community, it is hard to have teams with equal abilities, size and ages. Some teams are winning by large margins which does not provide an opportunity for players to improve for either the winning or the losing team. A more equal competition improves skill development and allows players to better learn the game.
In 2020, the juniors played a “Covid Cup” where teams were selected based on an even spread of age and ability. One of the marks of success of this concept was that nearly all games had a final margin of less than 2 goals.
The EP Football Board encouraged leagues to investigate ways to provide more even competition and continue to develop players. One of the suggestions was to develop a Junior Development Cup.
The GFFL sees benefit in trialling the concept and have therefore proposed a Junior Development Cup.
We are a league consisting of 7 clubs where each club plays 14 games over 17 weeks. This means that we play a “split round” where each club plays a home game, an away game and has a bye. The split round (R8-10) is an opportunity for the juniors to play a Junior Development Cup over 3 weeks instead of the regular weekly fixture.
This would still leave 2 full rounds (R1-7 & R11-17 where every club plays each other twice) for club football.
Fixturing the Junior Development Cup (and split round) in the middle of the season allows more even fixturing of the split round in the seniors and would allow a round of football (7 weeks) for the selecting of even teams with a better idea of where players’ development is at.
It is proposed the cup will run on the 15, 22 & 29 June 2024 with 4 teams of ideally 2 year age gaps (U16s, U14s, U12s & U10s).
To minimise travel, games have been scheduled at:
Karkoo, Cummins & Kapinnie in Round 8 - 15 June
Lock & Elliston in Round 9 - 22 June
Ungarra & Tumby Bay in Round 10 - 29 June
Parents attending multiple grounds due to the Junior Development Cup will only be required to pay a gate fee at one ground. We will work to keep siblings playing at the same grounds wherever possible.
Nominations are now sought for children that would like to participate in the Junior Development Cup in the 2024 season.
