Who’s the A-League’s Karmichael Hunt?
Roar Guru By Jesse Fink, 31 Jul 2009 Jesse Fink is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- AFL, football, Gold Coast AFL, Karmichael Hunt
Australian Danny Allsopp, left, fight for the ball with Indonesian Hariono, right, during AFC Asian Cup 2011 qualifiers Group B at Gelora Bung Karno in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, Jan 28, 2009. AP Photo/Achmad Ibrahim
Along with most of Australia, I was stunned that Karmichael Hunt has been poached by the AFL to play for the new Gold Coast AFL “franchise” in 2011. It’s either the most brilliant piece of recruiting in Australian sport – ever – or indisputably the dumbest. I am not sure which way to lean.
What is becoming clear, though, with the innumerable defections of rugby league footballers to union and the switching of players from union and AFL to boxing, is that old barriers in Australian sport are tumbling down.
Anything is fair game.
The prevailing belief of administrators and moneymen, erroneous though it may be, is that if you’re tall enough and big enough and catch a ball, you can just about do anything.
There is some credit to the idea.
There was Deion Sanders, of course, who managed to excel at the top of America’s two biggest sports, Major League Baseball and the National Football League, for the better part of two decades.
But equally there was Michael Jordan, the greatest basketballer of all time, who retired when he was at the peak of his career to play baseball.
The experiment was a failure. Jordan never made the transition to the MLB, languishing in the minor leagues, and went back to the NBA with his tail between his legs, chastened and just a little embarrassed.
My own view is that the AFL’s aggressive pursuit of the Brisbane Broncos fullback has been motivated as much by its avaricious desire for publicity and the commercial benefits that flow on from it as much as its genuine belief that Hunt can “cross over”. Judging by the amount of newsprint the story gathered today, they’ve already made their money back.
So why stop at Hunt and rugby league? It got me thinking about what A-League players the AFL might pursue – and there would be plenty of reasons to do so: after all, isn’t the A-League and football the real threat to the preordained might of Australian Rules?
Danny Allsopp seems a likely contender.
Still youngish, at 30, he stands over six feet and, as John Kosmina well knows, packs a bit of muscle. He’s quick for a big man, good with his feet and could be rebuilt as a sort of poor man’s Barry Hall if the AFL’s lab rats got to him in time. There doesn’t seem to be any international future for him with the Socceroos, so I’m sure he’d consider a good offer.
Or his Melbourne Victory teammate Archie Thompson, also 30.
Elastic with explosive pace and a hound’s nose for goal, you can picture the guy in a midfield scrapping and collecting role, and importantly, like Allsopp, he has Buckley’s of making it to South Africa 2010.
Former A-League player Bruce Djite, now with Genclerbirligi in Turkey, is in my opinion the true Karmichael Hunt of Australian football – 22, six feet tall and a big unit – but unlike Allsopp and Thompson, he’s got the world at his feet.
He will make it to the World Cup – and no amount of money would persuade him to defect, especially when he has the potential to make ten times more as a professional player in Europe.
Allsopp and Thompson, however, are ripe for the plucking.
If Hunt can cross over, they certainly can – and better still, the AFL would be driving a dagger through the heart of the biggest football club in the country if they pursued the pair, striking a massive blow against the fastest growing sport in the land.
Football Federation Australia: you have been warned. Start shoring up your defences.
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- AFL, football, Gold Coast AFL, Karmichael Hunt
July 31st 2009 @ 10:42am
melbvictory87 said | July 31st 2009 @ 10:42am | Report comment
hmmmmmmmmmmmm it sucks that they cant make the transition to the world game. whilst physically they are built like an ox, without technical skills they will get skinned
July 31st 2009 @ 10:50am
Redb said | July 31st 2009 @ 10:50am | Report comment
Jesse,
I “So why stop at Hunt and rugby league? It got me thinking about what A-League players the AFL might pursue – and there would be plenty of reasons to do so: after all, isn’t the A-League and football the real threat to the preordained might of Australian Rules?”
I know the comment is tongue in cheek, but the Hunt switch is more about making AFL an increasingly credible choice for Queenslanders than stealing players from other codes to weaken them.
In that context, I doubt the AFL would be interested in any A League players as the standard of athlete is hardly the best in Australian net alone the world.
Maybe the AFL would look at some elite EPL players?.
Ferrando Torres as a goal sneak for Essendon
Must be tough for the A League to get media oxygen at the moment.
Redb
July 31st 2009 @ 10:54am
Ben of Phnom Penh said | July 31st 2009 @ 10:54am | Report comment
30 is way too old in a sport where 25 is seen as an old draft pick. Still, anything could happen, particularly with some of our keepers.
July 31st 2009 @ 10:55am
MyGeneration said | July 31st 2009 @ 10:55am | Report comment
Wouldn’t goalkeepers be obvious choices? They’re tall and you know they can jump and catch.
July 31st 2009 @ 11:01am
Robbos said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:01am | Report comment
Yes definately the goalkeepers would be the obvious choice, they are generally the least talented players who likes using their hands that ends up in goal.
July 31st 2009 @ 11:43am
Pippinu said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:43am | Report comment
heh, heh – very mischievous Robbos.
I would think we would demand much more of our keepers in the modern game, who have now evolved to be sweepers as well.
If you try putting a keeper in goals who can’t handle the ball with his feet, you’re asking for big trouble.
July 31st 2009 @ 1:39pm
Michael C said | July 31st 2009 @ 1:39pm | Report comment
They can sometimes catch with those ruddy great sticky gloves they wear,
but, given how hard it is for Gaelic kids to convert with all the similarities there – for a soccer goalie, just that they catch balls isn’t that great an attribute – - much more of a concern is the decision making capacity,
so, if the goalie also happens to be a good basketballer – then, the combination looks a bit better. That’s still the key in most cases – the AFL talent and development folk know what boxes can be ticked via other sports.
August 3rd 2009 @ 1:25pm
Dave said | August 3rd 2009 @ 1:25pm | Report comment
Eddie betts , Adam Qoodes and Lachlan Keefe came from soccer. Robert Zabica was in the Western Ausralian Cricket squad when he did his back in and had to stop playing cricket. He ended up playing for the Socceroos.
July 31st 2009 @ 10:57am
md said | July 31st 2009 @ 10:57am | Report comment
Great piece Jesse, but you missed the most obvious one – the huge skill cross-over between AFL and football goal-keepers (many of whom drop punt a football (round kind) box to box without thinking and usually as a mistake).
I suspect one of the great Australian truths is that just about any kid who is interested in sports plays more than one code when they are a kid, and if you have athleticism and co-ordination, you can do well in just about all of them (front row in a rugby team might be the only truely specialised position I can think of).
Cheers
md
July 31st 2009 @ 11:01am
Ben of Phnom Penh said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:01am | Report comment
And the A-League’s Karmichael Hunt is ……………… Robbie Cornthwaite, to play in the ruck for Port Power and provide a marking option up front.
July 31st 2009 @ 11:04am
Davos said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:04am | Report comment
I doubt that any high profile HAL player would be offered a AFL contract regardless, simply they don’t have the market pull as Hunt does to a strong NRL market (existing v’s emerging). However a more mouth watering idea would be a high profile AFL player being signed up to a HAL club! Anyway Football is going to capture a lot more of these talent athletes at the junior stage, as both the kids and mums & dads will encourage and make Football their kids first sport. The talent pool in Football is and will grow rapidly. Athletes like Hunt will be playing Football in the future.
July 31st 2009 @ 11:15am
Robbos said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:15am | Report comment
Davos,
I think John Alosi would have the profile.
But yes the real ‘code war’ as you & Andyroo has mentioned is with the talented young athletes. This is the biggest threat to the other codes here in Australia. While as far as media & spectators are concerned, football are a long way behind both the NRL & especially the AFL, you will find more athletes who previuosly had choosen league or AFL before may now also have the opportunity to choose football (they are now a big player in this aspect).
July 31st 2009 @ 11:33am
Midfielder said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:33am | Report comment
Jes
You got in your article Kossie … can see him in the scraps in the centre .. All the goal keepers … but what about Kool speed to burn leftie …. Top Cat & Jedi as well … goes on..
July 31st 2009 @ 11:46am
Pippinu said | July 31st 2009 @ 11:46am | Report comment
Last Gaelic series, Australia’s keeper was absolutely hopeless, pathetic – the skills of a keeper and your average aussie rules player are quite distinct in reality.
However, the series before, I can recall Dustin Fletcher in goals – and he was a natural, an absolute gun – plus he’d be as tall as the Schwatter or Spider.
July 31st 2009 @ 12:24pm
Michael C said | July 31st 2009 @ 12:24pm | Report comment
The aspect of being a ‘natural’ -
there’s a quote attributed to Nathan Buckley I heard the other day,
about the indigenous players – it goes along these lines “Footy is like a tune, the indigenous players never forget it, there rest of us struggle to remember it.”