10-12-2012, 08:48 PM
I am hearing some really good things about Liverpool particularly regarding the accommodation and meals arrangements compared to previous years. The coaching and travel arrangements have been complimented too.
I feel it's time to explain the difficult situation the selectors found themselves in for this event. The organisers had moved the event forward a week which meant it encroached into Scottish prelim exam time. Effectively, when I started inviting our U16 picks I was getting knockback after knockback (and rightly so) because their prelims came first. Most of our U16 side was unavailable, we had to make a decision. Should we invite considerably less strong U16 players or move some of our best younger players up? We decided, after some thought, to move the younger players up to both the U16 and U14 teams.
This meant that we would have a fairly weak and inexperienced U12 team but it would also give chances to much younger players (like Ben Volland) to get their first Scotland cap and show what they could do.
It of course can be fairly argued that we should have bitten the bullet and fielded a very weak U16 team but retained a stronger U14 and U12 side.
We had 28 players to select, invite and organise. We had to make a decision with tight time constraints regarding confirmation of our provisional accomodation booking and I leave it for everyone to consider if we made the right one.
Robin.
I feel it's time to explain the difficult situation the selectors found themselves in for this event. The organisers had moved the event forward a week which meant it encroached into Scottish prelim exam time. Effectively, when I started inviting our U16 picks I was getting knockback after knockback (and rightly so) because their prelims came first. Most of our U16 side was unavailable, we had to make a decision. Should we invite considerably less strong U16 players or move some of our best younger players up? We decided, after some thought, to move the younger players up to both the U16 and U14 teams.
This meant that we would have a fairly weak and inexperienced U12 team but it would also give chances to much younger players (like Ben Volland) to get their first Scotland cap and show what they could do.
It of course can be fairly argued that we should have bitten the bullet and fielded a very weak U16 team but retained a stronger U14 and U12 side.
We had 28 players to select, invite and organise. We had to make a decision with tight time constraints regarding confirmation of our provisional accomodation booking and I leave it for everyone to consider if we made the right one.
Robin.