Yep! I couldn’t agree more, it ‘seasons’ youngsters playing against grown professionals. But what is most important is trying to develop these youngsters mentally to cope with playing these defences, and keeping that ‘football at home,’ skill level.
Which I think is what the Victorian Youth sides struggle with the most.

These may seem like very narrow minded thoughts but that’s just what I see.

yes mate good points overall.
As for adapting playing PL1 or 2 for that matter thats what either brings out the young players abiltiy of coping playing against Snr players.
Thats what its about as I'm sure you'd agree.
From next season U23's is introduced and long overdue, Qld started this season from memory NSW next season, Vic ?
This will level it out alot better and also not lose so many promising players who can't get a gig to date.
I don't watch each States NPL's as you have done but have alot of our NSW comps.
They are physical no doubt it to me, IF I can say my observations without being lol'd at I see PL1 like the EPL, the cut above, fast more skill so as the player moves the ball alot quicker, 1/2 touch barring late intentional tackles whereas PL2 is like the Championship, fast again but far more aggressive, its a dog fight.
Both are good specticles.

Adrian Segecic, Jaiden Kucharski, Aiden Mostofi, Patrick Yazbek, Adam Pavlesic 

FFV will change the league structure again next season when one of these A league sides get relegated to state league 1

For me it’s NSW, VIC, SA, QLD, WA, NNSW, ACT, TAS in terms of NPL quality.

SA is ahead of QLD due to the competitiveness. NSW is a bit more technical than Victoria, so it gets ahead only on that front for me, but could easily be the other way around. Obviously NPL 2 NSW and VIC would be in there probably between WA and NNSW as these comps run fairly deep in quality. 

I wouldn't mind to see what team could Victoria could put up against the likes of NSW and Queensland, it would make for a good state of origin series and show case the best talent in NPL land.

The NSW NPL especially is a strong league too.

Anyone to look out for in the youth team mate? 

Sydney FC holds their own at NPL level & it's totally a Sydney FC youth team.

I'd argue that the VIC NPL competitions are a lot more rigid and physical than a lot of the other NPL competitions around Australia, and not actually conducive to individual development, and thats why City and Victory have struggled churning out results and players in the past. 

It can be extremely imposing coming up against 30-35 year old grown men, as a slender 16 - 20 year old. If we look at Alou Kuol, he's a physical beast, he's quick, and he's strong. You look at Kaine Sheppard, Tomi Uskok, big boys, Jai Ingham, tall and quick, Valentino Yuel another similar to Kuol.  Elvis Kamsoba is the only outlier in recent years that went against the trend of Vic NPL players going into the AL.  He was just too nimble for defences,  but even then watching him he'd still get shunted off the ball, and I don't think he's adapted his game enough in the AL.

On the Weekend GV Suns v Bulleen Lions, the Bulleen front three were an average size of about 5'6 and they just got physically humbled by the huge GV centre back pairing which averaged about 6'3. No matter how smart you are coming up against these types of players, it is difficult for a young player to deal with, and hone their skills if they come up against it every week.  Not saying other NPL's don't have the same problem, I just think Victoria is a physical cut above, from my humble observations of each NPL around the country.

It really does depend on what you define as successful mate.  I would argue that Basketball  Australia (or whatever the governing body are called) would consider themselves successful. They have a top 10 national team in the world rankings for both men and women, have a huge participation base, have an expanding national competition, on free to air television. They have globally recognized Australian stars playing in the most prestigious competition for their sport in the world (sorry Euroleague pals) ... Yet not even close to being top 5 in Australia....

Adelaide have played in the top flight ever since they were promoted.

They were in relegation trouble for a while last season because they had about 11 players unavailable due to a number of youth players travelling to the hub while some were out injured as well. 

Interesting. If we’re not a top five sport in Australia could we still have a successful league?

All these young A-League fans, talk about growing the game,don't seem to be aware that the game has had many, many peaks over the past century or more.
The history of our game in this country is one of ups and downs, but never a progressive trajectory.
In one sense, the NSL was a backward step because it's true that the state leagues may have had bigger crowds, especially when there were so many derbies amongst big, popular clubs within the same city.
On the other hand, the NSL was a very progressive step, being the first national comp, but maybe it was a step too far.
We pretty much find ourselves now where we were in the best years of the NSL.
No advancement.

Glory are currently in the one NPL division in WA. They can be relegated to State League, and were very close to doing so a couple of seasons ago.

21K to a state league game in the 60s back when Juve and Hellas drew massive crowds.. Clubs actually drew less crowds once the national competition started in 77 and travel for away supporters was too hard and expensive. Now Aleague clubs like WU make it impossible for both home AND away crowds to attend their games by playing in another state.....

We have to remember that these youth teams aleague clubs put in are quite young compared to alot of the NPL clubs whom have older players that play to win, whilst the aleague clubs look to develop players for the first team which is maybe why they dont get great results from time to time when they play against men and often lack the experience and game smarts.

Although I expect the Melb clubs to do better, Melb City should given the resources they are investing in their youth academy if not correct.

Whilst in NSW Sydney FC have been doing quite well in recent times and with a new cohort of players I expect them to develop new players again, WSW have been disappointing but with the COE they now have they should look to do better whilst CCM look to have a strong NPL team that look to be one of the teams to beat in NPL2 this season after winning it last season.

Not sure of the rest in Australia though.

I said I'm not getting in this arguement on this post. This is about the NPL, not the NSL.

Those clubs existed long before the NSL came along.
The point is, first and foremost, they were, and remain, football clubs.
They exist for football.  They nurtured young talent, for no other reason than that's why they existed, for football (and that's why so many great socceroos came out of that NSL era).
The A-League franchises don't actually exist for that purpose.
All the A-League licenses were purchased by private interests.  They exist merely to compete in the A-League, which does not require that they develop their own talent.  They can simply hand out professional contracts to whoever is good enough.  Just for starters, if 5 of your 11 players are foreigners, then by definition, already half the squad could not have come from your youth system.
I'm not saying that's a good or bad thing, it's just the way it is (although we've seen how woeful youth development has been since the demise of the NSL).

And add to that some of the biggest clubs/voices against the current system actually argued against relegation in the NSL days to protect themselves.

And both "systems" that Lowey was instrumental in btw failed .... now what?

The real clubs were selected to appear in the NSL by soccer australia, as much as the "Franchises" of today were by the FFA, SM along with 3 other teams was gift spots in the old NSL, and given a caveat they couldn't be religated with in the first 8 years, if they could they would have dropped in there second year, but they were saved by the Caveat.
I'm not getting in to this arguement as it's been broached a thousand sites on this forum. But the "real" clubs you talk of were cultivated in the same way the current clubs.

Always good just to keep an eye on NPL, even if you don't follow a team see alot of good football in it, just a little more dispersed. I ended up at a semi last year saw casella (and rochdale) rip sydney Olympic apart.
Correct me if I'm wrong someone but I believe the reason for the struggle is 2 fold, the Aleague clubs pay minimal so the only players they will attract are juniors looking for a path to the aleague, and second, if the players are playing well they get moved in to the top team thus weakening the NPL side.

In the Victorian example, the explanation is simple enough.
You have a long history of real clubs bringing talent through from juniors to seniors.  Now the majority are not good enough to play professional football, but they are good enough to play a part at an amateur or semi-pro level.
Then you have the A-League franchises, bought their spot in the top tier and have never really given a damn about developing talent, because at the end of the day, they don't exist for that purpose.
Why develop your own talent when you can simply give out professional contracts to anyone good enough?

Last year CCM, won the double in NPL 2 but it was agreed by all clubs that there would be no promotion due to the stunted season.
WSW were gifted a position in NPL1 for the season last year with the withdrawal of Sutherland sharks from the comp.

Thanks for the replies I feel like following the city npl team and it will become even more interesting if we were in the top division. Any ideas on why we struggle so much? Also do the a league teams poach the other teams best players?

The victorian aleague npl academy sides seem to struggle immensely.

In contrast Sydney FC narrowly missed the playoffs in NPL1 last season and had the tournament's golden boot. WSW and CCM have mainly been in the NPL2 but weren't good enough to get promoted. Think WSW are at the bottom of NPL1, but may have been relegated last season. 

I really don't know why the Victorian sides struggle so much and it's sad to see them so far down the pecking order when they potentially have bigger budgets and access to better facilities, scouting etc

Newcastle Jets in NSW NPL4 currently 

Next season due to Graham Arnold, there will be 3 tiers of 16 teams in NSW
The top 4 teams of NPL2 will get automatic promotion to NPL1. 
The top 8 teams of NPL3 will be promoted to NPL2.

Yeah the NSW Aleague NPL squads tend to do much better than down here....

If they are like NSWNPL, they can be promoted, fc is in NPL1 , CCM and WSW NPL2, NJ NPL3

Both City and Victory NPL squads were in NPL Vic1 four years ago and have been relegated twice now to sit at the bottom of the table in NPL 3.
They will be lucky to stay up again and will end up in the state leagues soon. In theory they CAN get promoted but based on past performance I don't think they even really care themselves.. They'll get relegated this season and then some bullshit FA ruling will mean they chisel a spot in the league from some poor suburban club because ... well not really sure why?