Agree with most of that, but allowing teams to merge offers cricket to kids that wouldn’t normally get it.
Kearsley and Farnworth have merged the u13s and U11s. This isn’t to win more games or because both clubs are lazy. Both clubs could fill an u13s side but both would be asking kids to make the numbers up and asking a kid that’s not upto it has all sorts of issues.
Both clubs are playing U15s and u18s and Kearsley u9s. That’s a lot of cricket to get in, the number of kids that play means quite a bit of cross age group which some can deal with but some could get hurt. I notice Bradshaw and Horwich aren’t competing at u18s.