GWS hope of winning flag by 2016

Westfield win NSW Championships in almost every sport. that is no big deal. Very few schools in NSW would field genuine AFL teams. But the fact that the AFL will be waving money and promises to kids at Westfield across the range of Olympic and intenational sports is a big concern for all those international sports and their international competitiveness. Especially since it is becoming obvious that an elite athlete can pickup the necessary skills to play high level AFL with a big pay packet within a couple of seasons. AFL may become the easy option.

JVGO, The GWS Staff certainly knew about it - Why do you think it was targeted with Izzys help. Dont panic it will not become an AFL Academy unless the students demand it. GWS have their plate full at the moment. However the schools boys and girls Aussie Rules teams cleaned up their respective school comps apparently in only their first season, which is promising. Wonder who the schools A/R coaches are - Doing a good job.

Well they probably will the AFL is making so many concessions to these new teams. A little unfair i think.

Yes, but there aren't that many, Chris Ashton aside, who claim they are leaving RL for RU on the basis that they can better represent their country in RU. It's still about $$$ at the end of the day. As for GWS success, if they can develop the appropriate junior pathways, then they will start to attract the talent that harbour ambitions of playing sport professionally.

That's mainly because RL has slipped down the pole internationally over the years. Around 40 years ago Britian actually won a world cup - wouldn't happen now! Therefore, it is more attractive for people who want to play internationally to swap over.

I kept my eye on some of the Netball forums when the ANZ Chmp were going, was interesting to read their observations of how much extra rough contact and stunts like deceptively moving into player landing zones was happening and giving the game a distinctly harder edge, so I can certainly believe that!

I played mixed netball for a season with my then work colleagues many years ago. Some of those maori girls were damned rough!

Wrestling, gymnastics, decathlon. Ok, the last two don't have that combatitive element within them, but the main point is that Australia is too much a monoculture in terms of sporting interest. I think the resources, especially at the pro end, that they gobble up is (if you'll pardon the pun) feeding the obesity crisis in this country. There's simply not enough variety and options. Especially when you consider, as I stated, there are lots of sports which are far better when it comes to developing individuals in an all-round physical sense.

I can gurantee that Westfield has some pretty good wrestlers and netballers attending.

The original poster regarding the topic didn't seem to understand the nature and significance of Westfield HS. It is probably the most succesful institution of its type in the world. It is renowned for producing athletes that have represented Australia. If Westfield sports HS were to become an AFL academy Australia's international sporting performance would be seriously compromised.

Playing sport professionally? Yeah, I resent the hell out of that from my deskjob here.

Netball, you simpleton! :D

I swear every time I hear the phrase think of the children I think 'Oh great, I'm about to be sold another dummy where I lose a piece of civil liberty and the only people who are going to benefit will be either a fat cat, an institution or a bureaucrat'. Admittedly I don't think providing sporting options to states is a bad thing in any direction, but still. Nerve-wracking phrase. I do like when I see the PSA group fields where you have kids playing their choice of Union, Football, Aussie-Rules and field hockey all within a mis-kicked ball (of random shape and size) of each other. Yes, kids should have choices of sports to dive into, even in that last, best champion of facis-*cough* sport, Victoria. (Just kidding, Victorians, love from WA).

Let me guess...wrestling?

There are other sports around apart from the various footy codes - and which are far more technical and physical.

Too true. I understand that amongst the hardcore footyheads there's going to be this rivalry between the various codes. I'm very tribal in the geographic/social sense, so I couldn't care less which code becomes dominant and gets a bigger TV deal. However, the biggest threat to all sport, not just the footy codes, is Playstation, XBox and the internet. If only we could more focus on that than worrying about whether some goon has swapped codes. Mind you, if they banned all footy codes and only allowed Olympic sports in schools, I personally wouldn't complain. :)

Brings a tear to my eye, finally, someone thinking of the children! In the spirit of sharing I genuinely hope the kids of Victoria can be exposed to more Rugby, League and Football so that they have more choice when it comes to playing sport. Everyones a winner.

"As to your argument about RL hindering RU it is in fact the opposite. Our RUWC wins were actually predicated on defensive strategies and techniques that were brought from RL by RL coaches. There is constant movement between the codes at both junior and professional level now anyway and most elite players have played both codes at some stage for a mutual benefit." Have to really agree with this one - most def. I would like to see more cross training amongst them and with other sports. RU has lots of kids in its ranks that come from an RL background and that exposure has given significant advantages to RU player development in this country. I also think that RL getting involved with wrestling has helped them develop as well in the contact phase. Though I don't have as much contact with the pros as some of my colleagues who are involved with these guys in a coaching capacity, you can tell the advantages the RL guys have in being cross trained in wrestling as wrestling is highly technical and the most physically challenging sport in the world. This then filters into RU and considering the complete lack of interest in developing the game beyond a very narrow social base, the exposure to RL is a massive boon to RU in this country.

JVGO, There are about 600,000 NSW boys and girls each year who can play sport if they wish. AFL NSW is offering them an opportunity to play another sport if they want to. The NSW Sports Minister recently made the comment that he was pleased to see the AFL GWS set up camp in Western Sydney for the above reasons. His Labor predecessor made the same comments. NSW and QLD are part of Australia and our game has every right to properly expand if it wishes. Just because it has waited for 100 years to do so is not immoral. It is absolute craziness to expect a cashed up AFL not to look further afield. The GWS campaign will pick up quite a few kids but overall it will only get a percentage of the children who "want" to play sport as opposed to the thousands and thousands who "do not want to" The latter group is what you should be worried about because likely it is getting bigger each year, and that is another reason why our international sports ranking is slipping.

That's all past history.The movement to RL in the past was because it was professional and RU was amateur. The movement these days is actually toward union from league. How many current Wallabies started playing rugby through RL, Beale, Quade, Giteau, Elsom, George Smith and many more I'm sure. If they had pursued AFL they would never be Wallabies. If the NRL disappeared overnight as the AFL would like it too RU would struggle, they would be lucky to compete with Wales or Italy, that's what the rugby participation numbers would suggest. And that is to ignore the synergies between the codes whereby playing both codes make you a better player of either. Westfield is not a RL school anyway it is a sports school. There are RU players there also.