Juniors get their quick kicks

THE DAYS of kerb crawling to find carparks at Kensington Park on Saturday morning are numbered but there are a bundle of other good reasons why the new system of junior competition - due to take effect next year all over the country - will be a welcome change.
The responsibility for trialling the new junior football model in Whangarei - and sorting out any teething problems - has fallen to Tikipunga's Don Spice.
Spice said the biggest difference he had noticed with the new model was that the young players were more involved in the games.
"I've already noticed over a short period of time, that the kids [skills] are developing more quickly because they're getting more time on the ball," he said.
The underlying philosophy of the new system is to give players more fun, more opportunities to be involved and more touches on the ball on a Saturday game session.
The day starts with a group warm-up on different rotations before matches begin. Four, five and six-year-olds play in teams of three, and have three 10-minute games against different teams in a session, while the seven and eight-year-olds play four against four, in four 10-minute games.
"There's no subs so everyone's playing 100 per cent of the time. I believe that the players themselves are already benefiting from that," Spice said.
He said the parents were getting more involved with the new format and it was also beneficial for the club because the juniors identified with the club more than they did when playing their games at Kensington Park.
The only negative he has had in feedback from the coaches is that they spread thinner on the ground.
"The kids are benefiting but the coaches are finding it harder to establish a relationship with their kids ... in many cases there's 24 kids, so they don't have the same time with their "flock" as they did before," he said.
Some parents had mentioned that they missed playing other clubs but few juniors had noticed the difference.
"I was talking to a eight-year-old who mentioned he missed playing other clubs, so I asked him how many goals he'd scored so far this season. He answered 12, and this was only three or four weeks into the season, then I asked him how many he'd scored last season - he said five and then thought about it and decided it wasn't too bad after all," Spice said.
After the plan is rolled out into other clubs next year, the idea is to have football festivals every four to six weeks where there will be interclub games.
Northern Football Federation coach Dave Alabaster, who has a key role in getting the Tikipunga and Dargaville pilots underway, said the idea was to give the kids the basic skills earlier.
"When you see it in operation, you can't help but think why didn't we do this before," he said.
"What you notice straightaway is how much more involved all the kids are - all of the time. When you go up to Kensington Park sometimes you've got half a dozen subs on the sideline and half the kids on the field aren't doing anything, they're just standing and watching but when it's three against three you've got little choice but to be involved, hence the increase in skill level."
Next year, Alabaster will establish football centres around the area with the big clubs hosting their own game days with some of the smaller clubs likely to band together to come up with the required numbers.
"You want a minimum of four games - five teams in each grade. Some clubs, like Kamo for instance, will be big enough to have separate syndicates within the club to play their games."
Alabaster said the pilot schemes had thrown up a few teething problems but everyone involved had been positive and he was looking forward to rolling it out next year in the region.
Like Spice, he is positive that the quality and enjoyment of junior players will improve leading to a strengthening of the sport at grassroots.