And so I have! Thankyou and my apologies. I was being far to cryptic for my own good and in doing so led you astray. I'll fix that.
The ACT Under 14 team competed in Group B and came second. On that basis, you can list the ACT as having come in 8th place overall (there were a total of 12 teams). To move to Group A the ACT needed to secure first place in Group B. To be frank, this is better than I thought it would be a year ago and they came close to breaking into Group A. I have admired the hard work of the Coach, the players and time given by the supporting parents. So for myself, well done, they made a lot of progress and the objective for the NYC in 2011 is once again, to break into Group A. The nucleus of this group are well preared to campaign at the Under 15 level in 2011.
Now take this a step further in this age group ; your vision goes to the nucleus of the group that might contest the 2011 NYC - the 2010 Under 13 Boys. The first indicator is the qaulity of the ACT performance at the Under 13 NYC this year. Given the less than exhilarating preformance of our Under 13 Boys at the 2010 NYC (firmly stuck in Group B), 2011 NYC could be a big task, but of course, a year is long time in youth development. This group have also been retained as a HPP playing squad in the U14 Open local competition during the 2010 season. Has their progress been monitored by Capital Football (in a fornmal sense), are they proceeding on a detailed whole of year periodised program, have new players been identified and included, and so on and so on. The sort of thing that happens in a high performance environment. Hmmm! My concern here would be that if we do what we have always done, we will get what we have always got.
Now, the Under 15 Boys result. The ACT came last in Group A. See my previous post for comments on this result. The first objetive in the Group A is to stay in Group A. The results were painfully close and the unfortunate outcome for the ACT is that we drop out of Group A into Group B, while Queensland Country (first in Group B) take our place. This was the hard hit from this campaign for the ACT Under 15s. The ACT objective for the NYC in 2011 is to return to Group A. It's a hard road in this age group, that's for sure and it just got harder.
The NPL follower who drew my shortcoming to my attention, believes these outcomes are not good enough. I agree. That said, I have no doubt that the boys gave their best and I find it hard to be critical of our teams in these circumstances. But it's fair to ask a simple question - can we do better and if so how? If your answer is "no", then explain "why".
I have the feeling, speaking to the other States on various occasions, that they are getting ahead of the ACT in the "development stakes". I do not wish to imply that we are not not making progress, we are, I firmly beleive that, but the problem is that its not the full story. It's not just about the fact that we are smaller Football player / talent catchment area. That's a given! Some are quick to point out that in the past we were well up the list and now we are not. Good point. But the analysis can't stop there. Have we just got worse, fallen behind or have the others got better or, all of the above? I ask myself a variation on this question every time I see results at the NYC in recent times.
We have a review of our High Performance Program in progress at the moment. It's being conducted by Ron Smith (see previous NPL interviews on this Blog). Not much on the Football front will get past his notice and perhaps we will not necessarily like what we hear on some matters (and that's not to be read as a criticism of Capital Football) - but to quote Ron, when faced with decision around talented development - "Are you serious". Such a damn good question!
Consider some issues / factors which may impact on these NYC outcomes and give pausew to reflect on talent development in the ACT- somewhere between the number of players available at age; the number of players undertaking high performance training run by Capital Football; the ability to recognise emerging talent at age and be inclusive of it; the quality of coaching at the junior and PL 16 levels; the quality of HPP coaching; the resources made qvailable to HPP coaches, the availability of whole of year / pgram periodised programs; the resources made available to HPP coaches; does our High Performance structure / process represent best practice (by comparision to the States that are succeeding at the NYC); the cost imposed of families to support the HPP and additional cost associated with the NYC; are we giving ACTAS the sort of players it wants to be competitive (now remember their results at the 2010 NTC was excellent); with no established pathway beyond ACTAS (leave aside AIS) for talented players (boys) - is their less incentive going forward than their should be; does our smaller player base mean that we are likely to get greater variations in the standard of talented player cohorts; just to name a few - lies the truth of our situation.
I have concluded that the ACT has got itself squarely stuck in Group B at the NYC (across the age groups). That said, I think we have got better, while some other States have got a lot better faster! We are running faster and falling behind. We need to run smarter! (The notable exception in 2010 was ACTAS at the NTC. Makes you think.)
A further general observation; I doubt our HPP has the level of techncial detail or organisational sophistiation of say the Football NSW Project 22 or perhaps Football West. What does that say and what are we prepared to do about it? It would be a mistake to think that those at Capital Football with the responsibility do not comprehend these matters. They do. And everything comes at a price. Nevertheless, we are where we are.
The full picture for the NYC for the Under 14 and Under 15 Boys is as follows:
