Separating strong and weaker kids at games

This is a very good thread and I see the outworkings and reality of it in my own club at present which gives us a dilemma as this is the first time we've had the numbers to enter two teams into competitions.

I have been involved in coaching hurling for u11s and u9s for a good few years now and have done Foundation and Level 1 &2. Whilst we all are in some form of agreement of streaming, mixing teams etc is beneficial I don't know if the way blitzes are structured help but don't know what the alternative format is, or perhaps this is only my own county's way of arranging them.

So on Sundays we have U9 blitz, usually about 12-18 teams entered. Our own club enter two teams, some other clubs enter three and a lot would enter one team. Email comes through from the county hurling officer on a Friday asking how many teams each club is entering and what division you are entering them into. We have had 6 blitzes to date and there's usually 5/6 teams in Div 1, 6/8 in Div 2 and maybe 5/6 in Div 3.

Until last weekend we entered a team into Div 2 & Div 3. Our teams were mixed with two of the four strongest lads on each team and the remainder randomly allocated to each team with maybe the two weakest in the Div 3 team. We would generally win 2/3 of the six matches in Div 2 and maybe 4/5 of the 6 matches in Div 3.

Last week we decided to enter one team in Div 1 and one into Div 3 and make it a strong team and a weaker team to allow the four stronger lads to play together and come up against a bit more competition and work harder for the ball and for the weaker team to also not be reliant on the two strongest lads winning ball and doing all the work every week. Having not previously watched the Div 1 standard I expected our lads to get quite a few tough matches, but they ended up winning 4/6 and the Div 3 lads got badly beaten in 6/6.

To me this demonstrates that the stronger players in Div 3 teams ended up doing all the work and scoring and the weaker lads are happy to allow this to happen, despite "encouragement" from the sideline. Should we then remove the stronger players from the Div 3 team and let them work it out themselves or will that just discourage them if they keep getting beaten.

There are at least 3 of the lads that are statemented so we recognise that they are there for fun and enjoyment and prefer chatting about Fortnite in the middle of a game rather than any structured hurling which can often be frustrating for the lads that are there to hurl and have a desire to win.

Do all counties have different tiers or divisions in their blitzes or do they just put three different pools of six teams out and discourage having a strong, middle and weak division?

Each set of players is different. (I assume)

One of mine got moved down B to C and it was the making of them. Lots more time on the ball, and not stuck constantly in defense (or goals) on the higher team. Now moved back to the B team and is a strong player there now.

They also had one season were they were in a div too high for them and they got hammered every game, both in score and physically. Players constantly getting injured. To the point of having to stop games. Some of the opponents players seemed tool old (big) or too good for for the div they were in. They toughed it out, but it wasn't a good experience.

We've also brought up A players from the age below to make up the numbers on B teams. Starts off with those A player dominating, but eventually the B raised their game to the level of the junior A players. That might not have happened and the A players might have dominated all season. But you can't make players play better they have to have the hunger to do so.

With my kids there is a big gap between A and B teams players and matches regardless of age. B and C less so. But that might be just their teams.

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We are talking about 8 year olds here. Divisions dont kick in until age 12 or 13. Different situation then. I have no issue with streaming then - but I think any younger than 11 or 12 its inappropriate.

Essentially players know they’re worthless by aged. 8 and can quit before they’re developed

I suppose on the face of it, you entered a strong team in the weakest division, so taking the stronger players out of the team wont help the situation if you were being beaten.

What you find (I think) is that the 'one team' clubs often enter into the lower or lowest division, however they are tough opponents as they will have a handful of kids that are as good as your very best players- and at that age, one really strong player can make a massive difference. If these teams are in Division 3 then they are tough to beat.

Sometimes you get a club that has a tiny number of A players and the rest not great. When those player the team is unstoppable, when they don't play they are terrible. Hard to balance that.

I think some teams manipulated the grading matches along those lines. When you play them after grading matches its a different team.

I think for us, we were much stronger in our grading matches. Then we lost players to the A team, (and other sports) leaving our team a shadow of itself for the actual matches. That's also difficult to balance. We've also another sport collapse and players came back.

Thats fair enough, and I didnt read the post properly.

I suppose there two discussions at play here = one is about the merits or otherwise of streaming, and the other is how best to manage the fact that there are very strong and very weak players across any given pool. No issue with approach you take, seems sensible and fair.