Australian rules, rugby league, rugby union, football and cricket are locked in a battle for the best junior sportsmen in Australia.
A mate of mine has a son playing for a Sydney rugby league club. He’s on a scholarship where he is paid a salary, while his university fees and expenses are paid by the club.
He was offered a similar arrangement with a higher salary to switch to AFL when he was in his final high school year. He was also offered a rugby union scholarship via Sydney University.
He choose league but played both league and union at junior rep levels. His dad tells me this is very common with talented young players of all codes.
The arrival of the AFL in Western Sydney and the Gold Coast, along with the increasing professionalism of football, is causing traditional systems to break down in New South Wales and Queensland.
No longer would Steve and Mark Waugh choose cricket over football at 15. Nor could the Johns brothers be assumed to transfer to rugby league in their teens.
Kieren Jack didn’t follow his famous father into rugby league, choosing AFL.
The AFL has been arguably the most proactive in trying to get juniors across Australia. The NRL has reacted, especially in Western Sydney, and is operating a number of junior academies.
The NRL is also following the AFL into creating better structures and revenue for its second tier competitions, where they can place players if for no other reason but to stop other codes getting the best sportspeople.
The AFL and NRL run huge junior structures to underpin their second tier and national domestic competitions. By and large, these are very well run and where most future players are to be found.
Football and cricket have always had huge junior numbers. More recently, football has established a National Premier League where each club has a technical director, meaning football will have at least 100 training academies.
Other developments include the establishment of a new academy for indigenous footballers, higher technical qualifications being required by all coaches, and massive inroads into the private school system, with schools creating football academies akin to what they have developed in rugby.
Finally, the 700-team FFA Cup is hoped to bring the football family together.
Rugby appears to be the odd man out, seemingly relying on the private school system to develop its best players and offering scholarships in the same schools to promising junior talent.
Rugby can raid overseas leagues and rugby league for players. League can raid rugby and England for players. Football can source any number of overseas players. AFL by and large uses locally produced players.
AFL, NRL and cricket are broadcast extensively on free-to-air television, and have huge traditional followings. These attributes are very helpful in getting the best players as are the number of matches played and the crowds watching.
The Wikipedia entry for the 2012 season clearly shows the AFL is the top domestic league in Australia pertaining to crowds. This, however, does not show international matches, nor State Of Origin figures, nor Asian Champions League matches.
It’s obvious all codes want the best young sportspeople. It would appear there are two schools of recruitment – the bottom-up school followed by Australian rules, rugby league and football, and the top-down school followed by cricket and rugby.
My reading of the tea leaves is the bottom-up systems will dramatically overtake the top-down systems. The effort being made by Australian rules, rugby league and football to find and retain the best young talent at junior levels will affect cricket and rugby union in the future.
All things considered, the big winner will be football. Rather than bleed their best to other codes as happened in the past, football is keeping its best.
Football’s biggest challenge is to get players under nine years old so they can learn basic ball skills. The AFL and NRL will run extensive junior programs and retain their best.
The other factor is the rise of X-sports in revenue earning, with sports like skateboarding, surfing and BMX sure to take some competitors away from cricket and the football codes.
Why is all this important? The most talented players will put bums on seats and couches.
Debbie M
Guest
Can any one help me I'm trying to find out who I can contact for a talented 13 year old soccer a player to get a scholarship for school and soccer?
Pes
Guest
Just wanted to throw my two cents in... Australia has a population of 23 million spread across 5 (Rugby,Soccer,Cricket, NRL, AFL) major codes a number of minor ones (NBL, Surfing, Motor Sports etc). The USA has a population of +300 million and a high school system which aggressively encourages sports participation. This high school system tends to channel it's best athlete's into either baseball or NFL with hockey and basketball tending to be third choice based on geographic location. The US high school system also evaluates and assesses potential in a way that simply doesn't exist in Australia. If you have athletic ability you will be recognised and promoted in a way that doesn't happen in here, where often it's parents who push their kids to succeed (and also where selection in junior rep sides is sometimes influenced by who you parents are - as evidenced by the family dynasty's at some AFL and NRL clubs which simply don't make sense when you factor in the immense population growth in Melbourne and Sydney over 3 generations). So in the US not only are you competing with more people you are also competing on a far more level playing field. Put simply in Australia - athlete's can only ever be of a standard that you might find in a larger state of the US - the NRL and AFL both compete for their talent out of pools of around 11 million - that's the population of Ohio. Put another way - if all the state's of Australia focused on playing just NFL or Baseball we would struggle to produce enough quality athlete's to fill even one US pro sports team roster. That's not speculation but fact. That doesn't mean that NRL or AFL are any less fun to watch or even that it would be more fun to watch these sports if they were filled Ubermenschian super athlete's. What it does mean though is that all of this talk about athletic talent needs to be put in perspective - the league's we watch here when compared to European soccer, NFL, and even baseball are in athletic terms, the rough equivalent of watching sports 3 or 4 divisions below the big boys. That doesn't make them less fun to watch, less fun to follow or even of a lower quality - the absolute quality of the athlete doesn't translate into an absolute quality of player and in certain positions in almost all sports athleticism tends to be very much secondary to motor skills and co-ordination, both of which are attributes that come from learning technique at an early age. Sometimes it also just down to the quality and intelligence of decision making as well. The reason we love our sports isn't because we love to witness the spectacle of genetically superior athlete's competing at level we can only dream of - it's because we they bring us together us communities - they let us feel part of something bigger than us. They let us participate in shared stories of success, failure, injustice, justice served, glory, painful defeat and adversity overcome. The quality of the athlete's involved is really very much secondary to the act of following the sport for most people - I would still go and watch my team play if the standard was that of 1980, 1950, or 1920. I would still enjoy the games just as much and would still enjoy the banter and the stories during the weeks between matches. The sports wouldn't any more or less exciting and enjoyable with better athlete's and they wouldn't any less exciting and enjoyable with lesser athlete's either.
Debra mummery
Guest
hi there I'd like to know if there is a scholarship I could get that pays for his schooling away from the NT and to further his soccer as he is a talented soccer player and has turned 13 in June playes u/16 and has had a game in the u/19s and is very dedicated to his fitness and is aiming to make a career out of it could you give me some advice how or who to contact thank you⚽
Bondy
Guest
Avon I think you've got the market wrong, In sydney we appreciate all National Teams of all sports we dont hone in on a non international/representative sport like the Mlb press does. The mlb press cant tell the difference between the Rugby codes, I''ve seen and heard B Slater being described in an interview as a Rugby player "wrong ,wrong code" most sports journalists in Mlb cant distinguish between League and Union ,how could they be called serious journalists ?? You know its true,that insular thing again it keeps bobbing up...
Avon River
Guest
#Bryan In team sport the better the spread of skills the less weak links n the chain.
Avon River
Guest
The Sydney insularity comment is based on the Sydneycentricity of the view of Australia that distorts and is supportrd by Sydneycentricity of media. In the sporting sense RU, RL & soccer are heavily Sydney centric. Remove Sydney from the equation and the rest of Australia appears very different. I readily admit tbe same equation exists re Melb and Aust footy. However there is not a Melbournecentric national media to underpin the insularity. #Bondy Really re int rules?? Other than 2003 when a heap of Irish were out here for the RUWC Wallabies v Ireland game the same weekend which created a fantastic atmosphere at the MCG - the Int Rules is about as compelling/meaningful as a T20 match.
Punter
Guest
I could go to the AFL tab & mention many great players (non EPL) & most people on there would not know who they are. Why is that unusal, I think I would struggle to know most of those names as well. You have to remember this is a football tab.
bryan
Guest
The USA has more than enough population,& they DO spend the money . You would expect Australia to have a tiny fraction of the Gold medals that they get. In fact,over many years,we have done very well against them. Remember the American Swimming team who were going to "smash our team like guitars"? Hah! For some reason,Football"True Believers" on this forum seem to segue from the undeniable fact that "Australian Rules" football is only played professionally in this country,to the silly conclusion,unsupported by history,that Australians are unsuccessful in international sport in general..
bryan
Guest
And many thousands of other people.!:) I submit that YOU are probably the only one who has not heard of these players! It is not unusual to know the names of players in codes you don't follow. When you were just a twinkle in your father's eye,I had heard of George Best in the FA,& Joe Namath in American football,although I didn't follow Football,& had never watched the American game.
bryan
Guest
Hayden Ballantyne!!
bryan
Guest
There are few players in any code with the athletic ability of Hayden Ballantyne,at 177cm,hardly a huge man. On the other hand,there are some fairly big guys in the "A" League,such as Shane Smeltz,who actually looks like an AFL forward,& is of a similar level of athleticism. Danny Vukovic isn't small,either,& in his Goalkeeping, displays a high degree of athleticism. All of these three gentlemen possess "skill, dexterity, agility, discipline, creativity and mental fortitude",to a high degree,so it is not as simple as Big=athletic,small = skilful!
bryan
Guest
I haven't seen quite that,but both with the Dockers in the AFL & The Glory in A League,I have seen players who have possession of the ball,& could kick a goal,attempt to pass it off to someone who is supposedly "better" at kicking goals. In doing so,they often lost possession,with the result in many cases being a goal kicked against them.! Neither team seems to do that anymore,& they win more often.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
"Football was originally an English game. English players are still amongst the best in the world." And, I laughed & I laughed! Heck even the most parochial English fans wouldn't make such a ridiculous assessment.
bryan
Guest
Football was originally an English game. English players are still amongst the best in the world. Cricket was originally an English game. English players are still amongst the best in the world. What is so inferior about Australians,that if Australian Rules Football became an international game,we would immediately sink to the lowest level?
1860melbourne
Guest
OFF TOPIC! More great news! http://www.current.com.au/2013/09/19/article/LG-joins-Harvey-Norman-in-sponsoring-Friday-night-A-League-match
Midfielder
Guest
Fuss Re the importance of this release.. http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/roadmap-plots-socceroos-path-to-top-20130920-2u57q.html
Midfielder
Guest
Fuss The report is good nay excellent .... Must be careful as I don't want to start a another miss interpretation of what is being said ... As we know two things are needed in football, first is starting young arguably 11 is to old ... second is the amount of training required ...if we accept this premise pertaining to football... then getting the best available / keeping / having the right structures in place become critical in our future development... Meaning ... their is competition from many sports for those who have the want and will to succeed ... arguably today X sports like Skate Board riding, Surfing are where many talented people go ... however all codes have these people... Thus why the new structure FFA has developed with maybe 130 Australia wide training academies and clear pathways from park teams to A-League .... is so important to getting and keeping the players we want to keep ... As to the response some have taken that we don't need athletes .... Football needs the best sport folk actually does not say we need big strong running boof heads ... RRRRRRrrrr two things try and play football at the top level and not be an athlete [this does not mean big and strong] it means being very fit ... Back to the AC it is a great read and should put us on the right path...
vlad
Guest
Too true. The fastest AFL player sprints 100m a full 1.3 seconds slower than the Olympic champion. Not even high school winning speed in the US, Africa or Europe. I bet many cannot even lift the NFL combine bench press weight, let alone attain the 20 - 30 reps needed to be taken seriously. Anyway, who runs a "Combine" that only consists of 1 event (jumping)? Would it be the isolated, inbred sport that actively pays companies to make computer games about it because EA dumped it as having too small a target demographic. And yes, inbred because of if 3 generations of one family dominate the top team, it strongly indicates a system lacking competition and virtually no population growth in that time. And it has been quietly caught lying about player numbers and crowd numbers in Adelaide this year too. The Socceroos and Wallabies have to play people who chose rugby or football over or as well as international athletics. And rugby is fine overseas, now increasingly played in US colleges and the Irish Catholic US school system, particularly in the north east states that are the centre of world finance.
vlad
Guest
But old style agile running backs are being overlooked as too small and football or AFL are their best bets.
Fussball ist unser leben
Roar Guru
@Nomad No, you're wrong - my decision to stop following AFL had noting to do with Hawthorn's position on the ladder. I followed them regularly during the horror years of the 1990s when the club nearly folded. The last year I attened AFL regularly was 2001, when I attended every Hawthorn home game, several away games & 2 finals (Swans in the Elimination, watched the nail-biting final vs Port Adelaide on TV the week-end after the 9/11 tragedy & was at the MCG for the Prelim Final vs Essendon where the umpire gifted Essendon the opening 3 goals with free kicks). The following few years I remained a member but personal commitments & occasionally working overseas meant I hardly attended any games. By the time ALeague had started, I'd lost interest but still watched AFL on TV. Now I don't even have any interest in watching on TV, but will watch the Grand Final next week end.