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Brisbane Broncos rugby league player Karmichael Hunt poses with a Gold Coast AFL franchise jersey following a press conference on the Gold Coast, Tuesday, July 28, 2009, to announce his three year contract with new AFL franchise Gold Coast Football Club. Hunt will commence his AFL playing career in May 2010. AAP Image/Patrick Hamilton
The AFL’s expansion to 18 teams means the talent pool will become more diluted and clubs are reacting to this by seeking new ways to find players. It presents a new challenge for footy clubs and it’s interesting to observe their different methods.
When the Gold Coast and West Sydney clubs do arrive on the AFL scene in 2011 and 2012 respectively, they’ll be allowed squad lists of 44-50 players each along with nine rookies, meaning the league will suddenly need over a hundred extra players.
It’s obvious this will stretch the pool of Aussie Rules talent available and its already been said this year’s draft is thin on talent as a result of concessions given to the newboys.
This fact didn’t seem to be lost on clubs at Trade Week last month, which was an unusually busy period with plenty of movement between teams.
Ross Lyon, who took St Kilda to the Grand Final this year, has had plenty of success with recycling players (there were seven players in the Grand Final team who started their AFL careers elsewhere) and perhaps some clubs are keen to follow that example.
But offering footballers a second chance is just one method which clubs are opting for as they brace for the arrival of the two new clubs.
Collingwood perhaps have made the biggest splash this week by signing an American former professional basketballer by the name of Seamus McNamara.
McNamara, who is 24-years-old and stands at 204 centimetres tall, excelled at soccer and high jump as a youngster before going onto play college basketball in his native US and then onto Germany where he played professionally for a year.
Collingwood’s national recruiting manager Derek Hine commented, “Seamus comes to the club with a unique skill set, having played basketball at an elite level and participated at a state level in soccer while at school. We feel that Seamus has scope to potentially play both in the ruck and as a key forward.”
Signing a foreigner who is unfamiliar with the game is a gamble, but the Pies, like Sydney did with Canadian Mike Pyke last year, see potential in the athlete and hope to develop that talent.
Our footy fields have also been graced by several foreigners from Ireland in the past and there have been a number of Irish players mentioned by clubs in the close season.
Former Gaelic Young Footballer of the Year Tommy Walsh headlines that list after he signed with St Kilda, while Richmond and Brisbane have a few Irish lads training with them in pre-season with a view to drafting them should they impress.
But it isn’t only abroad where clubs are looking, with Gold Coast landing the most famous cross-code signing in Karmichael Hunt from rugby league (although he’s curiously off in France playing union these days).
But Hunt isn’t alone in switching sports, with Port Adelaide signing Melbourne-born Daniel Bass after he’d spent the last four years in the US playing college basketball.
Power footy operations manager Peter Rohde interestingly commented last month, “We keep a pretty close eye on basketball, especially some of the bigger blokes, given we’ve had some success there with Dean Brogan.”
Rohde added, “Being a Melbourne boy he’s familiar with footy and played a little growing up, so he’s not starting completely cold there,” before admitting the club weren’t expecting much from him in 2010, as they viewed him as a two-to-three year development player.
Indeed, recruitment is one thing, while development is a totally separate matter.
And that’s part of the challenge for AFL clubs who do decide to think outside the square.
And while the AFL hope their expansion into the Gold Coast and West Sydney will get youngsters in those regions playing footy and eventually feeding into their local clubs, those anticipated results are a generation away, at least.
In the meantime AFL teams still need good footballers, so stories like the aforementioned may become more common and clubs who find the right formula to identify, recruit and develop talent from outside the usual sources may just get a foot up on the rest.
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