Hi everyone,

What a first week.

My first newsletter of the season comes with a mix of excitement and concern. It’s been great to see so many fresh faces and so much energy around the games. The season has started a little differently than expected, some games were competitive and enjoyable, but too many were not.

The games and moving forward

The way the draw eventuated was not how it was explained to the Club presidents. I did expect some mismatches as I did say at our grading day but not the number or scale of the blow outs we saw.

Today I have been in constant contact with Southwest. I have emailed, I have spoken, and we have a meeting scheduled. I believe there is a plan in place and we will be supplying them with all the information they need — if not tonight, then tomorrow. My hope is with the work done today, along with the data we provide, will lead to adjustments that makes the game much more enjoyable.

As I said on grading day, we can control a lot of things, but not everything.

I can’t turn back the clock on what happened over the weekend and moving forward a team or two may have slip through the cracks, and you might see the occasional blowout — but it should be one or two out of a hundred games that are played each weekend not what we saw this weekend.

There were no winners

I know the teams on the wrong end of those scores were devastated. But I also had a coach from a winning team come up to me, equally upset. He spent the entire match telling his players to do the opposite of what he’s been coaching them to do for a year. They were being criticized for things they would’ve been praised for last season.

There were no real winners in those games — only the close matches felt like the competition we want.

We all want to build resilience in our children, but devastation is not the pathway to resilience.

Let’s reset.

Let’s get back to training this week, look forward to next weekend, and start fresh.

From the courts

Mark Smith

President