As you may be aware, the ACT representative teams for the Under 14 and Under 15 Boys have been competing at the National Youth Championships in the last week.
ACT Under 14 Boys
The ACT Under 14 Boys have had an outstanding NYC, finishing second to NSW. This concludes a long campaign by the Coach and Assistant Coach, Manager, parents and Players. Go back to the most recent NPL interview with Ian Shaw (Technical Director Capital Football) to hear about the process used to prepare these young players. A fitting reward for so much hard work and willingness to persist by this little football community. We look forward to seeing them all int he Premier League Under 16 (or higher is some cases) in season 2011. We will speak to their coach soon.
Pos Team P W D L F A Pts
1 NSW Country 5 4 1 0 9 2 13
2 Capital Football 5 3 1 1 6 2 10
3 Victoria Country 5 1 3 1 4 3 6
4 Queensland Country 5 2 0 3 9 10 6
5 Tasmania 5 2 0 3 7 8 6
6 Northern Territory 5 0 1 4 4 14 1
ACT Under 15 Boys
The ACT Under 15 Boys appear to have had a very difficult campaign. This is a highly competitive age group across the nation. Regrettably we were placed last, but I note that they played three draws, which implies two things - a loss of six points which cost them dearly in a short competition, and, the margin between last and second was a mere five points. The NSW Metro performance is poor by their standards, while the Football West winning performance should come as no surprise to anyone (the core of this team is most likely the oustanding U13 team of two seasons ago and had six Australian U13 selections among its number) Goal difference is interesting. It will be interesting to here how things went from the Coach, but the gap between second and last seems small, while the gap between Football West and everyone else appears substantial.
Pos Team P W D L F A Pts
1 Football West 5 4 1 0 12 6 13
2 Victoria Metro 5 2 2 1 6 3 8
3 Northern NSW 5 1 3 1 3 3 6
4 NSW Metro 5 2 0 3 8 11 6
5 South Australia 5 1 1 3 5 9 4
6 Capital Football 5 0 3 2 5 7 3
I think you are misinterpreting the results. The national championships has been split into two divisions. The under 14s were in pool B so they really came in 8th place out of 12 teams not 2nd. The under 15s came in 6th place out of 12 teams.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately since the under 14s could not win pool B they were not promoted to pool A and will have to remain in the lower pool for next year. It means all of the ACT boys teams will be in the lower pool next year. This situation is not acceptable and Capital Football and their technical staff need to finally be held accountable for these continually disappointing results.
Were you there? Were you? The only upsetting thing about the 14's results were that there was no added time in the games. If not for the NSW country goalkeeper going down down like a bag of **** during the second half while the ACT boys were on a roll we would have won that game. It took his team physios (and im being conservative) 5 minutes to get him off the field. Thus a break down in the ACT boys roll. It took another 3 or 4 minutes for the boys to get back that roll and before you knew it the game was over. Now these games were played in 25 minute halves with no added time even though there was ample time between games to allow for at least 5 minutes.
ReplyDeleteCompared to last years U/13 nationals where the boys played well below their best this years team needs to be commended.
I put it to you that if ACT played any team in group A other than possibly NSW metro with their 17 year old player, ACT would not have finished bottom of the ladder, in fact it would be middle to top of the ladder.
See my later post on this subject.
ReplyDeleteI believe I did praise the Under 14 boys - I have seen them play previoulsy and watched some training over time to form a view about their progress. I think they did well - see later post.
I have no reason to doudt your proposition that the ACT team may well have been a match for some teams in Group A. But we'll never know that for sure and it changes nothing.
I am well aware of the NYC playing rules - they all play under similiar arrangements, including the NTC Challenge. I have often thought there was too much lost time on short halves and no time out. The other comment that is made quiet often with the current format (and two Groups) is that there are insufficient games. But that's the format we are play too.
I was not at this championship. Didn't suggeest I was and it makes no difference to the content of the post. I do however, receive numerous calls from people with some understanding of football to read me into the tournament while it is progress. Its not the same as seeing the game - any of them.