Our Junior Development Program involves players turning 12 this year (with a few 11 year olds), training for 1 hour on Sunday's 5pm - 6pm, and playing weekly matches at Keilor Stadium on a Thursday evening.

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Background

At the end of 2021, our 11 & Under Program had the opportunity to participate in a 5-week match play season, due to the Covid-19 interrupted year. During this 5-week program, our coaches noted the benefits and increased skills progression by having competitive match play.

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We also noted the positive feedback from our parents that they felt the match play was a positive aspect to the program. This is why we are trialling this new program we can potentially offer in future.

Why is this only a pilot?

The reason we are 'piloting' this, and not yet offering more widely, is to see the feedback from parents after a longer season (approximately 16 weeks aver terms 1 & 2), whilst players this age are navigating their way through returning to school full time, playing Saturday netball at EDNA, and having other extra-curricular activities.

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At this age, it is rare that Representative programs offer more than training and tournaments, as to ensure participants aren't doing too much, at too young. There is lots of time to get into the athlete pathway, which generally starts at ages 13 & 14.

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We will survey parents and players during at at the end of the season to establish if this type of program will be suitable moving forward.

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