I've never really noted which teams play in the first and second divisions of county cricket, and which Aussies play in the teams. Most Aussie cricketers play in Div 2.

There are 8 teams in Div 1 and 10 in Div 2.

Two from each are relegated and promoted each year.

In coaching  a lot has been made of Jason Gillespie's coaching sojourns in county cricket. He is currently coaching in the second division  of 10 teams. His current team ( Sussex?) is down near the bottom of the ladder . He is often discussed as a possible coach for the Australian national teams.

Stuart Law also coaches a team who are higher up in the second division .

Michael Di Venuto ( who trains in the same gym as me when residing In Aus) coaches Surrey who are in the top division and are staying up.

None of our players feature in the top run scorers and wicket takers in either division in 2019. The notable exception is Marnus Labuschagne. He has averaged 65 and has top scored in  Division 2. 

It is funny Labuschagne couldn't get into the test team, except as a Smith injury replacement. Jofra did Australia a favour. Yet in county cricket Labuschagne had been  performing.

Gillespie took Yorkshire from Div 2 and lead them to consecutive Div 1 titles. Gillespie is highly regarded globally as a coach. While Sussex may be floundering in the red ball, they have a dominant T20 side with Eng intls Archer, Jordan, Mills, and Afg's Rashid Khan as the bowling attack. Even Behrenforf and Carey are in their squad.

Gillespie is a favourite for the England job as coach. 

Renshaw tore up country cricket 12 months ago. 500+ runs in 6 red ball games.. 3 centuries thrown in. First Div too from memory. Proves he is comfortable in English conditions. Just needs to regain his old form and he is our opener for the next decade.

I expected this from what I saw of Renshaw a few years ago. 

I've rarely seen such a talented batter lose form for so long.

I hate it when the Poms beat us with an Aussie coach. It really rubs the loss in!

Hmmm, read cricinfo, that Aussie coach, wants to coach Aus, but has told ECB to not let any Aus players play county in an Ashes year in Aus in future... He said CA won't let the POMS plays Shield, why does ECB let Aus find Labu and Pattinson/Siddle play county in an Ashes year...

Bayliss will replace Moody at SRH... But he wants the Aussie job... post Langer...

 Interesting stuff.

There are a lot more county teams than Shield teams. It wouldn't make as much difference Aussies playing county cricket as Poms playing Shield and taking up some places of Aussie boys in the six Shield teams.

What do you reckon has happened with Renners, Baggers?

That's a practical way of looking at it. But its only 1 spot per team.  And you'd probably only have room for Burns, Stokes or Root cos the rest of the England team batting is so soft. 

NZ used to regularly have the likes of England players Neil Mallender and Graham Hick over here for the winter. What has changed here is all the SAfrican qualifiers teams have. So we have about ~20 cricketers in our 6 teams that are not eligible right now for NZ. Its limited to 2 permatch. The last thing we need is English pros. But we did let Ben Stokes play for Canterbury for a large part of the Summer before a test/odi series here last year against England. He was good for raising the domestic profile of the game here.