This is a very interesting question.

The weakest VJBL clubs are the ones that spend zero time on their domestic league in terms of coaching and development.

Some of the worst habits are developed at domestic level and then feed into rep. Hero ball, no team work, no style of play.

What is interesting is where a VJBL club has coaches that do not even engage with domestic, including the senior coaches. That tells me that the club sees domestic as a revenue stream, not a talent stream.

Best domestic comp is the EDJBA - comprising of many VJBL Associations like Eltham, Bulleen, Collingwood, Warrandyte, Blackburn and others.

Then there are other Associations like Kilsyth, Knox, Franskston, Dandenong, Nunawading that run their own.

Have recently heard some talk from one Association re creating a seperate domestic competition exclusively for their rep players. I'm not sure of the "why" but I know it’s being discussed.

What are people’s thoughts on this? Does anyone else do it?

I’m Leaning towards thinking it’s a bad idea but not wedded to that view yet.

It's called A grade.

It's a bad idea as the kids that aren't rep get further behind.

Would make sense for those programmes where domestic has become a bit of a lackadaisical affair. Go and watch some domestic where there is no D (kids are too cool to try) and they just play jungle ball (or pit shot 3s). There is one association I know of where the rep programme has suffered terribly because the domestic programme is a complete joke and teaches the kids all of the wrong motives. Yet it is seen as a beacon and its coaches win positions within the establishment. Go figure.

My biggest issues with domestic at the moment is that you'll get some absolute super teams being built within the A Grade, and you'll find most associations even though written in there by laws about having heeps of 1 and 2s players in the one team don't actually monitor this.

So you'll get some really good A grade players that don't currently play rep playing against players that are 1s and 2s in one team getting flogged week in week out.

So what's the point of Domestic? Is it to let kids have fun and learn, or is it supposed to be an extension of rep?

@hoopie I have no idea...all associations have it in there rep handout at the start of the season that rep players need to play domestic, however not all domestic players play rep and here in lies the problem.

As I mentioned above you can have some real good domestic only players but when they come up against a team full of rep players its a blow out week in week out very boring to watch might as well just have a scrim on

"So what's the point of Domestic? Is it to let kids have fun and learn, or is it supposed to be an extension of rep?"

Truth be told, revenue from domestic team fees is a big motivation, if not the primary motivation. But if not for revenue, then it is to widen the net for rep players.

Most domestic competitions have their association rep players classified as 'restricted players', meaning no A-grade side should have more than say 3 rep players, from that age group.

B-grade often limits to fewer, in this instance 2 restricted players. Rep players normally cannot play lower grades than this.

When it is often asked why are rep players compelled to play domestic, it is meant to be the benchmark for the non-rep players to aspire to. But to 'aspire' to this has its own problems when the gap often widens.

What districts need to be, IMO, is to have both;
* Roaming coaching consultants to the clubs to fill in gaps which volunteer parents are likely to have and aid their non-rep players.

* Weekend intra-domestic tournaments. The rep players, amongst playing the extra game with other things, are widening the gap between themselves and non-rep players. Rep players who aren't competing, or feeling threatened, to keep their spot isn't good in developing their competitiveness.

Good points. Playing Domestic also allows rep players to work on learning new or improving weak skills in an environment where they won't be punished for mistakes (and where the rep team wouldn’t lose out If they did it in rep).

An association I was involved with ended up basically banning current rep players from playing Domestic because of the blowouts and complaints from clubs without rep players. (Basically, nobody wanted to play A grade from those clubs, so A grade ended up with the same old 4 teams, kind of thing.)

Ideally, rep kids should play domestic - after all they are representing that association. But making rep kids play domestic can be an issue, including from a load perspective.