SENIOR REPRESENTATIVE

                                    

SENIOR REPRESENTATIVE PROGRAMS 

Aspiring
Rep program for older high school children and senior players

Designed to give older players a more affordable coaching opportunity to refine their skills to compete at a higher level.  Mostly for our older teenage players and seniors who want some coaching and importantly want the opportunity to play with friends.


Wisden

For our top senior representative players

The Wisden squad is for players who are amongst the best in NZ.  To be in the Wisden squad you must be at least 15 years old, available to play for ABA in the Wisden and Slazenger Cups and should be playing consistently in senior competitions throughout the year.  Younger players who make the Performance Squad still can test themselves against our best senior players with our new cross-over trainings.

Footwork and Fitness

For all our players

To be a great badminton player you need to have a strong fitness base.  ABA offers four footwork sessions during the week, and one fitness/running session.  Players are welcome to attend all sessions.  We recommend attending at least one footwork and one fitness session per week if you want to perform to your potential.

SELECTION POLICY

ABA maintains a consistent selection philosophy across all our squads and teams.  Ultimately selection has some subjective elements and selectors will choose based on their opinions teams that they believe will perform at the highest level.  Parents, players, and others may not agree with the selections, and if they feel a mistake has been made, they can follow the complaints process to make their case.  Please note that any issues raised should be made respectfully as the selectors are not making personal decisions without thorough consideration to begin with.

  • Committees make selection decisions, not individual coaches.  By having a committee approach, it ensures that all players are evaluated fairly and that it is more than one coaches opinion.
  • Attendance, commitment, discipline and attitude in squad training and at competitions is important.  As a rule, attendance at over 80% of training is expected and if a player is not going to attend, it is expected that they communicate well in advance with their coach.
  • Performance in competitions, including YYSL for juniors.  Ultimately performance in a competitive environment matters and seeing players deliver in competitions helps coaches believe that a player will perform when under pressure playing for ABA.
  • Player’s potential to improve with our training.  This is the most subjective part of selection and while it requires faith in identifying talent, it is important to factor in as some players excel in a training environment and given time perform better than others who might have looked better a few months earlier.

We are confident that we have a transparent process that players can understand and work towards achieving higher selections, that doesn’t depend on any individual coach, and has checks and balances to ensure that we do not let players slip through selection cracks.