New Zealand Provinces

Check out the guy who wants Northern England to flog six different teams from NZ.

WAC.

 

Yeah it's something I'd considered to make the provincial comp shorter. People aren't all that interested in Victoria v Southern England for example because it's just such a weird match-up with no real life rivalry. Having three sub-provincial comps with a few games each and then a less diluted comp with GB+I, Australia and NZ could work to an extent as it'd be too small comps of like 3 rounds each. There are pitfalls though:

1. What does that mean for Asia and SWP?
2. Most of the New Zealand provinces don't have enough players.
3. I think people like Tart, Colesy, Paddy and *shudder* Skippos might re-think their provincial eligibility if Australia was an option; they're with who they are now largely because they have no strong state ties (Tart/Colesy have lived in two states, Paddy/Skippos live in states/territories that don't have teams) but they do consider themselves Australian first I think.

So what I'm thinking is that we have two divisions of provincial cricket. Problem with that is that we'll have 9 provinces next season, and I just don't think having one comp with four teams and a three game season is enough provincial cricket in general. Having all nine in one comp, on the other hand, would be too much. So I'd like to see 10-12 provincial teams across two divisions, and then look at the JTC week as a week for more exclusive rep games between full strength NZ, British Isles and possibly Australia.

 

Haha yeah you're like a reverse Cribbage in that Australia > Ireland > NSW for you.

 

Skippos won't be eligible for NZ next season no matter what.

 

I don't think it necessarily has to be a step up from franchise cricket. We have the North v South series at the end for true elite representation now. I see rep cricket more as a more stable and long-term way of divvying up the players than a step up as such; it's been good seeing New Zealand for example slowly climb up the ranks by developing players. Franchise cricket in CricSim is very player market orientated in that clubs have usually taken over the reigns just by signing up some good players. I really like that provincial cricket is largely separate from that; the only changes in your personnel each season come about when we add in new provinces so you have to develop your own squad as such. That, and a level of meaningfulness about who you're representing is what it's about; not a step up in quality.

 

And just as an aside, you weren't playing for NSW City A on merit on such; the PCDIY Cup is a development comp so the fact that you were new+active meant you were likely to benefit from such a thing.

 

Lots of people do. Found it interesting coming from you though as it usually comes from older members who were used to the days when it was that; we used to just have NSW v Queensland games and with a four-six team comp it was a real step up to play in that. We had a few scattered Kiwis and Vics on the forum but they just aligned themselves with either NSW or Queensland and played a couple of really poor quality friendlies between themselves every pre-season.

We have North v South to replicate that experience now. Provincial cricket is something a bit different.

 

Despite all that I do agree that the ideal number of provincial teams would probably be 5 or 6, from a scheduling perspective. But it's just not possible with our demographics anymore to do that, so doubling it and having two divisions would also work.

Annoyingly we have the middle ground of 9 teams - not enough for two divisions without one competition only going for 3 rounds, not enough for one division without the whole thing taking 10 weeks.

Instead of trying to grow to 10-12 I could try and scale back to 6 I suppose - put NSW back together as one team, don't bring in Celtic Provinces or SWP. The problem with that is twofold - firstly, NSW have way too many provincial-standard players and it'd get really annoying for Julian for example to not be playing any games for 6 weeks while terrible players from Asia were getting a run repeatedly. It does happen a bit with provincial cricket and that's life but when NSW A would take down Asia and Victoria 7 times out of 10 then it's a bit silly. Secondly, you're still then left with players who don't have any connection to the provinces they're in. Sure, British Isles as a concept works, but Prez in particular would be left in limbo, and I don't really want us to get to a point where he's leading the British Isles attack just because that's the province he randomly chose if it can be avoided.