This situation a junior football league in Melbourne has got itself into, has been doing the social media rounds this week
https://twitter.com/9NewsMelb/status/1696801872890265679
Now I must state from the start that I haven't had access to any of the news articles floating around about this as they're all behind paywalls, but I have been able to pick a fair bit from reading far too many comments on the situation.
THIS IS 2 DIFFERENT ISSUES
My understanding is that the league moved the finals games from a Sunday to a Tuesday - a weird choice in anyone's world, and 1 the team that finished on top by a stretch (with a % of 300%) are away on camp that Tuesday and had to forfeit that game but they finished on top and have the double chance so live to fight another day, but still not a great look to change the day and they said they;d work with clubs in the scheduling so I'm not sure what's happened here.
The other issue isn't, which isn't even an issue and is explained here - the ladder is cut in half with the top 5 playing the "real" finals series to determine the grand final winner and the bottom 5 playing their own finals series as "reserves".
That's it.
WORDING
Knowing that everyone is on the "kids need to learn how to lose" and "everyone gets an award" train, the league could have done a better job then saying all 10 teams will be playing finals and simply saying something along the lines of "while the top 5 will play off to determine the Grand Final winner for 2023, the bottom 5 will also play off against each other in the interest of player participation, enjoyment and retention."
I actually think it's a great idea as there's no harm in those bottom teams getting some extra footy game time and in a competitive game as the last game/s of the season as most kids will remember those games more so then the round 1 thrashing back in April.
This does wonders for overall enjoyment and retention for next year.
KIDS DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOSE
This is ridiculous as the bottom teams lose 3 out of every 4 games at least - they've lost and often lost badly, all year long.
You think they're not good at losing?
The fact they turn up every week shows that they do know how to lose and I suspect that parents and coaches are the one's that need to learn how to lose, in a lot of cases.
If you want kids to learn how to lose then I posted this on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/AFLTraining/status/1697223743716925914?s=20
KEEPING SCORE
I'm on board with not keeping scores until under 12's or even older if you really wanted to but to say everyone keeps score so it doesn't matter doesn't make it right either.
I don't know about you but my 12 and a half year old isn't so sharp at maths he can play a full game of footy and keep the exact score count at the same time.
I'd go even further and argue that those who are counting the score in their head aren't really giving their all in the actual game either as per the cognitive load theory (look it up if you need to).
And the fact that they're focusing on the score and thus the outcome, and not the process of building that outcome, means there is close to zero player learning occurring and also only builds them into people who have to do something (play footy) to get something else (the win and subsequent ego boost).
Once the winning goes away what are you left with?
Once players move up age groups and it's more about skill and game intelligence over big kids dominating little kids, they're no longer equipped to compete, enjoyment decreases dramatically and they drop out altogether.
IF YOU WANT TO PLAY FINALS THEN WORK HARDER AND GET BETTER
Great in theory but horrible in practice.
Like senior teams, there are powerhouse junior football clubs and these clubs can field 5 or more teams in the same age group.
My son's team is a very successful division 1 senior team but is a tiny suburb between 2 giant suburbs.
We field mostly 1 team in each age group while our 2 neighboring teams field teams in pretty much every division of every age group.
So in our 1 team we'll have players better suited to playing 2 - 3 divisions below what they do at our club but because we have 1 team per game, a lot of them play up relative to their ability and experience.
We played division 2 this year with payers better suited to divisions 3, 4 and probably 5 versus teams full of division 2 quality players and probably a few who get squeezed out of their division 1 teams simply based on their huge player numbers.
In the last few years our really top players ion my son's team have gone to these powerhouse clubs so "they can play division 1" at under 12 level!
If I may go back a point, moving teams to play in better teams isn't really teaching your child about the ups and downs of life is it now? And loyalty's already out the window at a young age too.
You can't simply get better when you struggle every year as kids drop out and move teams and you;re just trying to get enough players to fill your team each week let alone actually have players long enough to actually develop them, unlike the powerhouse junior clubs.
I'm not having a crack at the powerhouse clubs, they so a super job but something just doesn't sit right with me when some clubs struggle for 1 team when others have 5 but I still don't have an answer on what to do about that personally but if you do, I'm all ears.
WHERE DOES WINNING REALLY RANK?
There is a study that looked at what makes sport fun for kids and although it was done in the US, kids are pretty universal in what they like and why they like it - every kids loves Fortnite regardless of where they're from but the game is the same everywhere.
It had kids rate 81 different reasons for enjoying sport with girls mostly opting for social aspects and friendships and boys going with competition, copying their hero's, improving their skills and progressing to higher levels. Both sexes ticked boxes for trying your best, working hard, staying active and playing well together as a team.
Where did winning finish?
40th out of 81.
I'll leave it at that.
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