With all due respect to Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter, he is making too big a deal about the "kids" getting their chance in the national team.

When Baxter selected his squad to play in the four-nations tournament in Zambia, which they won, he made mention that it's time to give the younger ones a run.

For those that are tired of the old heads who have failed to qualify for this year's World Cup, it was a welcome move.

In Africa, we like to separate the players by age - there are experienced players and youngsters, but in other parts of the world, players are viewed in the same light.

Why is that it was not a big deal when Neymar made his debut for Brazil at 18 and yet it was big news, even surprising, that Rivaldo Coetzee made his Bafana debut around the same age?

We've had situations where players are given their opportunity late because they were "too young" and "inexperienced" to be thrown in the deep end.

When is it ever going to be purely about your ability to get your chance rather than whether you are experienced enough?

If you are good enough, you are old enough.

We would rather have an experienced player who's struggling for game time at his club ahead of a deserving young player, who's consistently doing well for his club.

This is to our detriment because players start late and before you know it, they are gone without having contributed much.

When Teko Modise played in the National First Division, it took him years to get to the top division, because probably he was "too young" for those that could have signed him.

By the time he came up to the topflight, he was 24 and went on to earn 66 senior national team caps.

Imagine if he was judged, at the outset, on footballing ability rather than his age. He would have played in the PSL at an earlier age and probably earned over 100 national team caps, but only made his debut at 25.

Neymar, by the way, was 22 when he played his 50th match for Brazil and yet we wonder why we only have just one player - Aaron Mokoena - who has over 100 caps for the national team.

Needless to say, Mokoena was only 18 when he earned his maiden cap for Bafana.

Next time you bump into Benni McCarthy, who's now the head coach at Cape Town City, ask him one question: why is it that he was able to go on to play 80 matches for Bafana and become the all-time leading scorer (31 goals) when he was just a "kid" when he started out.

I bet he would have given credit to Gavin Hunt at Seven Stars and Jomo Sono (Bafana Bafana) who judged him not on age but on his ability .

It's high time we do the same with everyone.