According to the website of Oosterhout Twins, the club will move on with more home grown players. As a result, several hired guns that dominated the lineup in the past years will not return. Also, manager Adonis Kemp will leave after just one season at the helm of the flagship team.
On its website, Twins stated that the farm team had a fantastic year, and that the team nearly won the championship of the eerste klasse (second-tier league) as it was one point short in the standings to tie champions UVV. Also in a later competition between bottom three hoofdklasse clubs and top three eerste klasse clubs, the farm team had some promising results, although the team was badly beaten up in other games as well.
Due to the promising development of the players of the farm team, Oosterhout Twins has decided to promote a core of youth players to its flagship team. This means that players like Shurman Marlin, Diamond Siberie, Tyriq and Urvin Kemp, Arthur Bonevacia and Ruendrick Piternella will not return.
Even though one can applaud the move to use more home grown players, this has one negative side effect. Manager Adonis Kemp has decided to step down. “With last season’s team, we were on our way to the top, but this new policy is destroying that development. I feel at home at Twins, but with too many youth players, I cannot continue the chosen path and reach my goals,” said Adonis Kemp.
With Raily Legito sacked as head coach by Curaçao Neptunus, Kemp is the main candidate to fill that void in my book, especially with his Neptunus background.
According to Paul Bun, Twins must give several youth players a shot because of their good development. “If we don’t give them this chance, they will likely leave the club, and then we will face them with other teams,” said the mastermind of this new strategy. “We have to think of a strategy for the next five years. These young players need to mature in the hoofdklasse, face high quality pitching and perform under pressure. It is up to them if they will pick it up. We also want to be a regional team again.” With all the hired guns from the big cities North of the Dutch rivers and from overseas territories, local youth players hardly got a shot at reaching the flagship team.
Even though the goal of the club is to reach the play-offs again in 2023, they may very well be out of reach. But with the closed circuit, the Dutch hoofdklasse is for the next four years, this is the time to rebuild, as no team can be demoted. When a team is in a play-off race or playing against demotion, it is unlikely youth players will be used.
Perhaps the fans will return with the new strategy as well. After Oosterhout Twins returned to the Dutch hoofdklasse in 2016, the ballpark was packed with fans. As soon as the club started hiring more and more non-home grown players, attendance started to dwindle, as if the fans were alienated from the team.
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