Saints firmly believes the strength of the club and the future of its players will be better served by keeping teams in each age group as equal as possible. The current U7, U8, U9 and U10's are proof this strategy is effective.

This philosophy aims to ensure:

• all kids have the most enjoyable experience possible as junior players
• talent is evenly distributed
• all players need to play to thier capacity
• the focus is on skill development form 6-9 years
• 10 years and up is competitive with a strong emphasis on playing to capacity

Having strong and weak teams or hand selected strong teams at young ages in the weekly rounds is fundamentally flawed. If a very strong team is selected they do not work to thier ability level, yet still attain wins. If it is a weak team they continually get beaten no matter how close to thier potential they play. Neither of these options is good for player development.

Strong players need to get opportunities to play in strong teams that support thier ability level and reward them for thier efforts. This is important as if they only play in weaker teams they never learn to support or trust passes to other players. 

At Round robins where coaches cannot get a full team togehter from thier own squad, this should be used as an opportunity to give the stronger players a chance to play in a team where there ability is supported by other strong players. Also coaches are free to enter round robins from FNC with selective teams to foster player development.

Stronger players are also advised to join the development squads in U11 and older.

U9 and U 10 run pre-development squads.

Putting kids in overly strong club teams at young ages when they arent matched by the competition they are playing retards thier development.