THANK you to the lovely Fox Sports cameraman who chose to film me during the Mariners 0-0 draw with Adelaide last weekend. That really made my weekend, mate!

At least I got my mug on camera though, which is a heck of a lot more than you can say for the National Youth League.

Call me insane, but I find it perplexing that not a single NYL game (barring the final) has been shown on TV. Surely, one game a week isn't too much to ask for!

When the National Youth League was established in 2008, its main goal was to allow talented young players to play competitive matches on a regular basis, which would (for some of them) lead to playing regular A-League football.

However, an integral part of this development should have been getting one or more NYL games televised. If games are televised, more interest will be generated in the competition. As it is, I have many friends who are genuine football fans who didn't know of the existence of the NYL until I told them about it.

As well as generating interest, having our premier national youth competition for football on television makes it seem like a more legitimate pathway for young footballers. As it is, we are already facing a player drain to overseas clubs who boast better facilities and higher reputations than our humble A-League clubs do. For young players of 17 or 18, having their games televised every so often is a great incentive to remain on Australian shores.

Many other "smaller" sporting competitions are shown on TV already. The NRL's equivalent of the NYL, the Toyota Cup, has 2 games televised a week on Fox Sports, as well as a small segment on The Footy Show. To put this into perspective, the NRL is probably one of the premier competitions of its code in the world - the rugby equivalent of the Serie A or La Liga. However, despite the fact that the Toyota Cup only started last year, just like the NYL, TV rights were secured for the inaugural season.

What reason could there possibly be for thinking that the interest in the NYL would not attract a decent television audience? Anyone who has ever checked the FourFourTwo website would know that there are a large number of people who actually do care about the NYL (including yours truly)!

I know that my preferred pre-match entertainment would be an NYL match, not a 30 minute long, rambling, pre-game show. For me, the thought of watching more football is much more appealing than watching another episode of ‘Dumb and Dumber' starring "Bozzie and Robba" (note to Adam Peacock: drink coffee before going on air).

At any rate, if the NYL is not going to be televised (which, for this season, seems highly likely) the least the FFA could do would be to provide live updating on the A-League website, similar to that which they have for the A-League. That way we can at least imagine what we're missing out on, rather than finding out about it six hours after it happens....

++++
On another note - how good was Matthew Lewis for the Mariners? He showed his pace and his flair and is definitely one for the future.

This time last year, I predicted who could be the future stars of Australian football. About 60% of the guys on my list have A-League contracts for this season (which is pretty good, better than I'm doing in Maths at any rate...). So who am I predicting will be getting the contracts next season? Find out, next week...