Throwing tennis balls, kicking soccer balls and playing rugby league might not sound like an AFL training session, but that was exactly the case at today’s indigenous screening at the National Centre of Indigenous Excellence.

While rugby league has been for a long time the predominant sport in NSW, the QBE Swans Academy aims to provide an option for talented young people with aspirations to play at an elite level.

Swans Player Welfare and Development manager Dennis Carroll said today’s screening day was a chance to open up the sport to the local indigenous communities.

“The academy is just trying to provide opportunities for young indigenous players who might be interested in the game, and to expose them to AFL and the Academy and to get an understanding of their levels of talent,” he said.

“Clearly there’s a lot of talent within the communities and we just want to provide them with an opportunity to get a feel for the Academy.

“There is clearly some talent here so we’d like to provide AFL as an option.”
Swans Academy Talent ID and Operations Manager Chris Smith said the Academy was looking for a range of athletic skills, rather than specific AFL talent.

“I’m not looking for AFL specific skills, I’m just looking for kids who have good balance, good hand-eye coordination, enthusiasm as well as things like hop, skipping and jumping and agility,” he said.

“We’re looking for basic athletic credentials, but hand-eye coordination and balance are probably the two major things.”

Today’s screening involved participants aged between 12 and 15, with a wide range of sporting backgrounds from rugby league to soccer.

Smith said it was beneficial for children to play a range of sports, even if they have dreams of becoming an elite AFL player.

“I think if anything (kids who play other sports) have got an advantage,” he said.

“We are always encouraging our younger kids to play other sports and then they can bring those skills they acquire in other sports into AFL.

“We think we can actually have a bit of an advantage in that we’ve got kids with a wide cross section of skills coming to AFL, as opposed to other states were the kids just predominantly play a summer sport and AFL in the winter.

“We find that these kids are good at soccer, they’re good at rugby league and they’re good at basketball, they are just good at everything.”

Swans Academy senior coach Paul Roos, who was also involved in today’s screening process, said he agreed that young people should develop a range of athletic skills.

“AFL is such an all-round game now and I think that’s why when we do our trials with all of our Academy kids it’s not just about kicking footballs or catching footballs, it’s just general coordination,” he said.

“We know we can teach a kid how to kick a football, providing he knows how to handle a ball and is coordinated, so these are the things we do with all of our kids.

“Clearly when they first arrive and haven’t played AFL we don’t expect them to pick up an AFL ball and kick it 50 metres and hit someone on the chest.

“It’s all general drills and general coordination drills.”