- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
It is often said that the Australian sports do not learn from each other enough, and the usual suspects brought up are the NRL and AFL.
While generally neither code steals from the another, mainly for reasons of pride, it is time the NRL take full advantage of what is so far a gaping missed opportunity.
The AFL’s listing laws allow a certain number of ‘alternative talents’, usually from other sports, on each list, and most clubs take advantage of such a feature.
We have seen these alternative talents spring from mainly Gaelic football, but also athletics and even college basketball.
Some of the more successful alternative talents include Brownlow Medal winner and Melbourne club legend the late Jim Stynes, as well as former Sydney Swan Tadhg Kennelly, who is now a talent manager himself.
We are yet to have heard anything like this even whispered about in the NRL.
Rugby league is far from a simple sport, but it is a sport for anyone to play. Its theories are not overly complex, and that’s what makes the game so great. The learning curve for Aussie rules is certainly much steeper, and at least some natural talent for the game’s essential skills is required to play even one AFL game.
This is why it astounds me that the NRL has failed to implement any kind of pathway for foreign athletes to get a look-in at one of the 16 NRL clubs.
For example, for an AFL-loving young American, it’s simple – AFL talent scouts are in America almost every year, and if that fails, you can send a video of yourself kicking, handpassing and boucing a football. Contracts have certainly been signed this way.
For an NRL-loving young American, the process could not be more difficult – as far as the public is aware, no-one has ever represented the NRL in America scouting for talent, and there are currently no international talents at any of the 16 NRL clubs.
For a game that is so obsessed with expanding and becoming truly international, that’s pretty poor.
Yes, there are of course differences in the two situations – money is a sticking point, and there is a lot more money in the AFL and its clubs than there is in the NRL. Some clubs are struggling to stay afloat as it is.
However, all that is required is one of the better-off clubs, say the Sydney Roosters, to put out feelers in places such as America or Irish Gaelic football, to see if there is indeed any interest in a young athlete coming over to give league a shot.
There is plenty the NRL itself could be doing also.
While sending out a team of officials scouring the globe for talent is probably a bridge too far just yet, simple things such as promotional videos could have more of an impact than you think.
Even one international athlete playing in NSW Cup would be a spectacle itself, and would prove to others that it can be done.
Not everyone makes it in their sport of choice – professional sports is a cut-throat industry. Let’s give a young, talented athlete abroad another shot at professional sport.
Reckon you can pick the winning team? Build your own dream team with Draftstars daily fantasy and compete on any match. For great odds on the NRL head on over to PlayUp. Imagine what you could be buying instead. Set a deposit limit.