train less = drop in skills etc.
Any season needs to be balanced and fair i.e. 1 home, 1 away game between teams.
Unless you play each other once and have a couple more tournament weekends.
If grading is shortened you would get team imbalances.
Biggest thing I've noticed is teams not travelling / playing interstate is missing the opportunity to be challenged to another level. (not much can be done about that).

You want priority placed on skill development but no Sunday training. So your ok with 2 midweeks.?
Playing for your local association only stifles development.

Grading is long but the only fair path with clear lines to where you end up. Previously you weren't given the same clear paths

As an ex coach I would like to see less teams per association.
12 teams in VC
10 in Metro 1 2 and 3
10 in remaining regional zones

Max 6 teams per association per age at 12, 14 16,
Max 3 teams at 18’s.

I’d love to see a tournament like March madness over 2 weekends, where you rank the top 64 teams based on standings at the half way mark where 1 plays 64 2 plays 63 in a knockout elimination to decide a winner.

In SA grading to be only your age group.
Do away with first and second years.

The attitude of parents - especially to refs

"You want priority placed on skill development but no Sunday training. So your ok with 2 midweeks.?"

Fine with two midweek sessions - Find the Sunday training silly when Associations know so many boys play footy.

"You want priority placed on skill development but no Sunday training. So your ok with 2 midweeks.?"

Fine with two midweek sessions - Find the Sunday training silly when Associations know so many boys play footy.

Move Rep to Saturdays and Domestic to Fridays. Expecting junior athletes to perform at their peak straight after a full week of school is nonsensical. Particularly the older age groups who end up having 9:40pm tip offs.
Domestic comps involving only local commuting would make way more sense on Fridays. Less stress on working families too.

Shorter grading phase - more emphasis on the actual season.

Less teams per age groups. One VJBL association has had up to 17 teams in 14s. 17! Past the 5s, teams are actually told to source their own coach and training venues.

More opportunities for additional development subsidised by the associations / BV.

More focus on development at training vs obsessing over plays esp in U12/14s.

Stricter monitoring of teams playing a zone in younger year levels. Harsher penalties for coaches and clubs who do it regularly.

No trap defences allowed until U16's. Man to man defence only. It's not about how clever the coach can be, it's about developing players to reach their full potential.

Far less emphasis on winning in State representative competitions, especially below U18's. Make it round robin only. No finals, no gold medal winner. Maybe then coaches will pick players based on longer term development, not on winning purely to pad their CV.

Less focus on kids who are big because they have grown early - dumbest thing in u12/14 basketball. Ruins skill base of those kids (forced to play big man roll and don't develop ball handling, even though they may not even get to 6 foot).

Agree that it should not be every 2 years. I never understood this and why it never seems to be questioned. The solution is to have more age groups 12,13,14...etc and less divisions. The same amount of kids would play (maybe more?) and it would lessen the huge physical disadvantage some kids have.

WA also has U/12, U/14, U/16, U/18

"I'd love to see a shorter season, more focus on skill acquisition and development, players repping the association where they play domestically and no Sunday training."

As a coach in the VJBL. I would like to see a slightly [3 - 4 fewer week] shorter grading phase. Possibly utilising some weekend tournaments to get through the number of games to allow the full grading to occur, as I believe it is a fantastic grading process. Unfortunately, it just takes a bit too long.

Skills acquisition is correlated to the amount of training time. As a coach I utilise the Sunday training sessions as skills acquisition and the midweek training session as game preparation. I would like to see some additional training midweek. Unfortunately I'm aware of limitations on court availability which prevents the additional midweek training. But it would be nice.

Representing the association where you play domestically - this is a tricky one. it initially sounds quite easy, but, there are more players who seek to play representative ball than there are positions in some associations. Consequently and rightly so, parents seek opportunities for their children in other associations but keep their friendship groups in the domestic competitions. In the eastern suburbs of Melbourne there is a very high density of associations that field representative teams and travel between the associations is not particularly difficult. There is a propensity for parents to association shop looking for where their child will make the higher team.

Doesn't playing each age-group double everything?

In Qld, I believe that double-year age-groups were intro'ed cos not enough kids in smaller assocs(?).

OK. Makes sense!

big clubs could field teams in every year U10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 etc but some clubs would struggle to field a full team of a certain year and need that 2 year bracket to get enough players.

Anon #538

For many years the Hawthorn association allowed unlimited rep players in its top domestic grades. This often resulted in one-sided games against teams without rep players, embarrassing training sessions basically. Usually the same two or three clubs had the rep players and fought out the finals, and God help the rest of the clubs.
In the last few years they brought in caps on the number of current or former reps per team, which evened things up a bit.

Personally, I'd prefer rep to be kept for the best and most competitive players and coaches, and domestic kept for those who want to develop but aren’t rep players. The grey area would be if rep comps were to be reduced to fewer grades with only the best 10 or 12 teams, because then you need to find a place for those rep players who miss out in a particular season. I guess you’d need to allow former rep players to play domestic, just to keep them in the game.

why not have some 3 v 3

"big clubs could field teams in every year U10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17 etc but some clubs would struggle to field a full team of a certain year and need that 2 year bracket to get enough players."

If a club can't field even a single team as described above.....maybe they need to look at merging with other smaller, nearby associations.

Think some consolidation of associations would make sense but of course more Associations means more teams and more dollars so that will never happen.

Yeah that single year age group really seems to be destroying other sports like AFL's development and participation.

Could definitely look at getting rid of two year age groups especially for the boys as they have more than enough numbers. Girls numbers can be a bit scratchy at clubs from year to year and taper off once they hit 16's. Footy clubs used to have 2 year age groups many years ago u13, u15, u17. Clubs basically only had 1 team per age group. Then Auskick came along and all of a sudden clubs had to start fielding multiple teams in single age groups.
Could morph into a much better system than 2 year ages after couple of seasons.
Much easier to do gradings and divisions once going.
Could turn Friday Nights into a div1 only night which is better than what bsa were going for with the ML and DL system.
Play 12's and 13's at same venue while the 14's and 15's play at the alternate venue.

By having single age groups it gives an opportunity to put kids up another age if they are dominating. At the moment their is no way you are going to put up a 2nd year u14 who is dominating into u16 as the gap to 2nd year kids in 16's is big

Two-year age groups versus single-year age groups.

Effectively in the larger associations, the first and second teams are predominantly top age players and competing in VC or VC reserve. Now on occasion, there are some exceptionally talented bottom age players who play in the top team but for the most, it is normally top age players in the first and some bottom age players in the seconds and a major of bottom age players in the 3rd and 4th teams. Effectively creating the single-year experience in most cases already.

This actually does provide the opportunity for a bottom age player to play in a higher competition with the top age players within an age group. And if the coaches are mature enough it provides good flexibility to balance teams according to their level of player development.

In my opinion, the two year age grouping with top age and bottom age players provides flexibility and development opportunities don't really see this as broken and don't see a need for it to change

@Relax Coach

Good post, think I agree.

Up to clubs and coaches to have a good plan re bottom age players to ensure the maximum
Blend of individual development and team building.

@Relax Coach

Good post, think I agree.

Up to clubs and coaches to have a good plan re bottom age players to ensure the maximum
Blend of individual development and team building.

Just for clarity and because @644 suggests I may lack knowledge or have some form of unconscious bias.

I have coached junior basketball for nearly 20 years. my kids have both played from Primary school, local domestic, and VJBL regional through to VC. One still plays in Big V at senior champ level. As far as the end of the years they were born, one was in February the other is November.

I would say I'm reasonably experienced to have a qualified opinion.

Is there an advantage for a child born early in the year in junior sport? absolutely, both in body and mental maturity. Especially at the lower age groups of under 12 and 14's.

In my opinion, dividing the age group into yearly increments would not reduce the 12-month maturity advantage evident in young age groups.

It may in fact create greater problems particularly when parents start requesting their child plays up an age group thereby diminishing the skill level and competition level of the total age group.

Having a shot clock in VC and VJBL1 with 24 seconds. I'd have a 30 second shot clock in all the other grades

Looks like domestic might start up in November but it will be tough to get Rep going under the usual format while the density quotients and patron caps apply

Time for the powers to be to get a little bit more creative, a little bit more assertive and make it happen!