Recruiters for the AFL’s new women’s league, beginning in 2017, will consider targeting some players from Australia’s gold-medal-winning women’s Rugby Sevens team.
The Brisbane Lions have admitted an interest in recruiting from the code and already have one target potentially in mind.
However, Brisbane’s women’s chief executive Breanna Brock admitted that players jumping from rugby sevens to AFL would face challenges to be successful.
“The tricky thing with our sport is the skill that’s involved and if they can pick the skill part up, they’re natural, they’re made for our game,” said Brock.
“They can pick the ball up cleanly they’re hard at the contest, physically able to deal with tackling and all that kind of stuff, unlike netballers who I think would be harder to transition over.
“I don’t know if any of them (the Olympic team) are interested (but) I’m sure we could fit them in if one happened to be there and say ‘Yeah, I’m interested’.”
The Lions are reportedly looking at the prospect of Bo de la Cruz, a formers Sevens player, who has recently taken up AFL.
“We’re certainly looking at her, we’re encouraging her to nominate for the draft,” said Brock.
Meg Hutchins, Collingwood’s women’s football operations manager, said that AFL clubs would be certain to take a look at potential recruits from Rugby Sevens.
“It’s a very exciting brand of rugby, rugby sevens, and I think that’s also what the AFL want the national women’s competition to be, an exciting thing that people want to watch,” said Hutchins.
“I think what you find with them is that they’re really athletic, but also physical at the same time, which is obviously what AFL is all about.
“I think certainly (rugby sevens) is an area of sport that the AFL can look into for enticing players across to our wonderful game.”
The women’s league will hold an inaugural draft in October that will see clubs fill out their lists ahead of the inaugural season, which is set to begin in early 2017.
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