The value of minutes

It perhaps shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Australia was unable to cower their opponents in the opening half – the Thai attack not populated by players likely to wilt in the face of pressure.

Striker Jaided is a 17-time senior Thai international and has made 100 appearances across the Thai and Asian Champion’s League. Another senior international, Supachok Sarachat has made 101 appearances in the same competitions and goal scorer Amornlerdsak has 88 league appearances and five in the Champions League.

Mueanta, while the least experienced of the quartet, is still the reigning ASEAN young player of the year, a senior Thai international and has made 21 league and five Champions League appearances before his 18th birthday.

He made history when he made appeared in the Thai league at just 15 years of age – setting the record as the competition’s youngest debutant.

That the four are simply better than the Australian players is a matter for debate - the likes of Piscopo, Genreau, Gersbach and Jacob Italiano all arguably have more natural talent and varying European pedigrees - but they all play regularly, they often play together and they cardinally play more often than the lion's share of Australian youth. 

PLUS...

Olyroos vs Thailand: Player Ratings

The Olyroos shocked tournament hosts Thailand with a come-from-behind 2-1 win in Bangkok. There are still things to work on, but that result puts Australia in a more comfortable position to make the quarter-finals.

Indeed, the challenges faced by Australian youngsters in their attempts to gain regular playing time are well-documented, and Sunday morning’s first half demonstrated just what young players empowered by regular and meaningful playing time can do.

Of course, simply calling for young Aussie players to receive more minutes is an easy to make an ultimately meaningless platitude – solutions need to be found.

With the country’s youth league – the Y-League – only eight games long and frequently bereft its prospects that are called up to fill out the benches of A-League clubs, Arnold has repeatedly called for the introduction of a reserve league in Australia to get more minutes into young legs.

Those calling for a national second division have pointed to the opportunities it will provide young players as one of its key selling points.

Short term player contracts and a lack of transfer fees between A-League clubs also removes one of the greatest incentives – profit – to play young players at the top level and there remains a prevailing ‘wisdom’ in the Australian game that, everything else being equal, still favours veterans over youngsters.

Of course, as Arnold likes to say, youngsters have to earn the right to see the pitch.

However, much more can be done to remove barriers to them playing when they have done so.