In 2022 Men and Women Representative players aged 18+, including any home grown AKL tertiary students attending University out of Auckland, will have the opportunity to put their hands up post the U23 SkyNext event in February to take part in a revamped A’s programme which will have 3 distinct phases:
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Local derbies v Tier 2 teams (Sep) vs Harbour, Waikato, Wellington and Manawatu
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Training block (Oct/Nov) in revamped RPC
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Australia exchange with NSWIS/NSW Futures team (Dec)
CEO Manoj Daji said “in our view this is a very important developmental age group that has largely been forgotten with the removal of the National U21s. We want to provide a meaningful programme of development, not just a tournament, for our players on the fringe of the NHC teams, and believe an exchange post tertiary studies at a lower cost to players than next year’s NHC fits the bill, while we pick up where we left off in 2019 with our last development trip to Melbourne during the Pro League”.