Hunt and Folau won’t make it as AFL stars

 
Spiro Zavos Columnist

By , 8 Jun 2010 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert

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Brisbane Broncos rugby league player Karmichael Hunt kicks an AFL football. AAP Image/Patrick Hamilton

Brisbane Broncos rugby league player Karmichael Hunt kicks an AFL football. AAP Image/Patrick Hamilton

If the millions of dollars the AFL codes are paying Karmichael Hunt and Israel Falou are for more than for PR work, then these two players should be expected to be frontline five-year players in their new code. A fearless prediction: this is not going to happen.

On Saturday, the Sydney Morning Herald ran three documents that make the convincing case that neither Hunt (a tough, stocky and not so fast athlete), nor Folau (a tall, fast, super-athlete), have the practice history or the right aerobic levels to become outstanding AFL players.

Bruce Teague of Gosford, in an informed letter to the SMH, made the point that it will take an enormous amount of time to teach a union or league player, even if they have the right body-type, how to play in the AFL.

Then there is the problem of the 360-degree vision which is absolutely vital for an AFL player, compared with the 180-degree vision required for league or union. “Izzy will have good moments,” he predicts. “But Karmichael will be consistently average.”

Then Michael Cowley had a piece on how Swan Dan Hannebery was made a star by his dad.

Most nights, Dan and his dad would go off to a pedestrian tunnel under the Kew Eastern subway and spend countless hours kicking footballs. According to Cowley, this practice is “the secret behind Hannebery’s sweet, accurate kicking.”

In another part of the SMH’s sport section there was a fascinating article by Daniel Lewis titled Talent Not Enough For Code Swap.

Lewis interviewed sports scientists about Hunt and Folau’s switch to the AFL. They told him athletes need “10 years of passionate engagement,” or 10,000 hours of ‘deliberate practice’ to reach the elite level of their sport.

To reach this level, Hunt and Folau would have to engage in 417 days of deliberate practice at 24 hours a day, Lewis reported.

The experts also pointed out that when an athlete transfers to another sport, he is exposed to patterns he won’t be able to read. This will make him a liability on attack and defence.

Former Collingwood player Ricky Barham is quoted as saying that coaches “will put somebody on Folau who can run all day and he’ll be rooted.”

This raises the question of whether the AFL has considered the impact it will have on its credibility if its two highly-paid, make that excessively over-paid, converts do not make it.

My guess is that AFL tragics will be furious that their money has been thrown away. The AFL players, as we have seen already from posts on The Roar, will be as mad as hell and will push for a bigger cut of the AFL riches.

And rugby league fans, especially among the reptiles of the media, will become consumed with a visceral hatred of AFL for its perceived arrogance in trying to bring down their game.

This has already started with an item in the sports gossip section of The Sunday Telegraph which suggests that Folau, a Mormon, was forced to accept the AFL offer to play in the western suburbs of Sydney so that his family and his church can keep a close watch on his behaviour.

None of this makes for good PR for the AFL, despite the fact that good PR is what the Hunt/Folau exercise seems to be all about.

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