http://www.walterpless.com.au/2014/june/goals-galore-does-not-necessarily-mean-quality-football.html

Walter Pless, the doyen of Tassie football, rarely proffers his opinions about these sorts of issues.

He has in this article.

Last year I thought without equivocation, the new NPL, or Victory League, was decidedly better than the regional leagues. I've seen no men's NPL games this year, because of travel and other commitments.







Edited by Decentric: 8/7/2014 10:13:03 PM

I noticed no difference in quality when marathon was changed to snickers, same with the national pub leagues.
Its another 10 years before any improvement will be observed.

Well it doesn't help how theres such a split in quality between the two sides of the island.

Edited by melbourne_terrace: 8/7/2014 09:29:57 PM

Last year there seemed to be a decided difference in standard. Six of the teams could play possession football at their best.

For the record, the author thinks the NSL was a higher standard than the current HAL.

To his defence in terms of appraising the V league, being a former state league coach himself, he argues that with all the accreditation in the world, some of the current coaches still need to be able to coach tactics in response to opposing plans. All of them are accredited FFA Advanced coaches. Yet when most've been observed impartially and privately by some FFA staff coaches, they have had faulty training ground practices.

The only thing is none of them did a subsequent useful Skills Acquisition Program trainers course. This specialised in technical training, compartmentalising Technique into four core skills of First Touch, Striking The Ball, Running With The Ball and 1v1 Attacking and Defensive skills.

All who did that course, none of the NPL coaches though, thought it clarified technique training. It was targeted for youth down to juniors, but had great implications for senior players too. It could extrapolate to some other NPL scenarios in
other states too.

Three of the NPL coaches have a much more significant background in football. One has coached professionally in the Vietnamese V League and the old NSL. Another was a state FFA TD, who would be well aware of the SAP components, but has very limited playing stocks. The third was a long term EPL player with Leeds United.






Edited by Decentric: 8/7/2014 10:12:07 PM

It's gonna take a while to see the quality rise. but it is about time they joined.

Have to agree with Walter's assesment based on the fact two players that last year played in the Tasmanian NPL with South Hobart from Victoria dominated in Tasmania but are not dominating in Melbourne.

While good players they are still developing players but were dominate with South Hobart as a comparison the NPLTAS would be equivalant to NPLV U20's.

Tassie would also be better off having a team in the NPLV.

Edited by Arthur: 9/7/2014 08:29:08 AM

Edited by Arthur: 9/7/2014 08:33:21 AM

Yet surprisingly, last year in the NPL final, Sydney United were a similar standard to South Hobart.

The game you saw them play was an appalling display from what I gather. I don't think it's fair to use that game as any sort of benchmark.

I don't think it's fair to use that game as any sort of benchmark.

Edited by TheSelectFew: 11/7/2014 01:37:43 AM

Again making sweeping judgments over 90 minutes of football. 90 minutes of football that saw one side comfortably win 2-0 while playing very poorly (by your own appraisal).

How else do we judge?

Even so there were aspects of the game where Sydney United were abysmal.

Regardless of how effective they were in the NSWPL, they played a lot of long, high balls; straight passes forward parallel to the boundary line; poor body shape playing forwards; one sided players; low quality attacking interplay; poor structural shape, etc, etc.

Rudan is a coach I want to see succeed too.

Sadly, those aspects of play I identified as poor, were also identified by much more illustrious coaches.

It is not simply a question of a bad day. I think those same faults would be observable on a hypothetical better day. South Hobart have plenty of faults too.

In the past I've trolled elsewhere on the internet to see if some Bitters were capable of a plausible response . They weren't.:lol: I'm not trolling this time though.

I'm also pleased to see Glen Trifiro do well with the Mariners.

If you haven't seen me post this before, I like your contributions on 442, SC. Your posts often add breadth to discussions.

Why not?

It was the Australian final of the second tier to the HAL.

i was meant to say it was.

#-o