Yarra Junior Football League’s CEO Tim Murray spoke with Neil Mitchell of 3AW on Monday morning around the hot topic of scoring in children’s sport. Following an article over the weekend published in The Australian, and comments by adolescent psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg, Murray spoke of the importance of the kid’s development and personal attributes. “The purpose of sport is to teach the kids about themselves, build self-esteem, resilience and confidence. Not scoring doesn’t really help with that stuff, would be our view.”
When asked by Mitchell if anything is achieved by not scoring, Murray replied “The kids know the score, the parents know the score, the coaches know the score and I think there is a difference. And when you don’t score you lose the intensity and focus. I think it’s better for the game if they score”
“But you have to keep some balance about it. It is fair to say that some adults and coaches on the sidelines do lose perspective. And that’s the background of this trend that was described in the article over the weekend.”
The YJFL currently follows guidelines set by the AFL for junior leagues, where their recommendations are no scoring for 10 years old and under. “It’s important we fit in with the AFL system and it is an AFL strategy to have leagues running the same philosophy between each other and we don’t want to create an environment where parents move their children to a particular league as they perceive there to be an advantage” says Murray.
Ultimately though, Murray and the YJFL want kids to grow as footballers. “Win, lose or draw, what we say to our kids is, don’t worry about the result, just do your best.”
Listen to the full interview below.https://www.yarrajfl.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Tim-Murray-YJFL-3AW.m4a
A post shared by Yarra Junior Football League (@yjfl_au) on Feb 10, 2020 at 2:35pm PST
