Swans Academy and player watch

[Conor_Dillon]

That's a good point but many junior footballers start playing as 7-8 year olds and are forced to play in higher age groups due to numbers and also if they are seen as talented. Similarly most gun 15 and 16 year olds end up playing senior football at a local level anyway so this would have a similar effect to toughening them up.

[ShockOfHair]

Interesting story here re early arguments for the Swans Academy. Also like that in this story Heeney has now become a "top three talent". Won't be long till he is allegedly the top draft pick!

"Sydney would have completely withdrawn from the national draft and started recruiting exclusively from New South Wales under a radical proposal put to the AFL when the club was pushing for the establishment of the Swans' Academy more than nine years ago."


Read more: Swans had plan to pull out of draft

A really interesting story but seems to be missing something important, like what changed to make the Swans stay and the AFL to accept the academy plan?

I bet that Patrick Mills guy is regretting that this came too late for his footy career....

[Ampersand]

A really interesting story but seems to be missing something important, like what changed to make the Swans stay and the AFL to accept the academy plan?

I bet that Patrick Mills guy is regretting that this came too late for his footy career....

I'm sure he finds some small comfort in his millions upon millions of dollars.

[ShockOfHair]

Does anyone think that Cherry Picking talented 11 year old Rugby Union and Rugby League players in NSW for the Swans Academy has advantages over kids in the other junior AFL programs? I personally think that the tackling and toughness backgrounds in the Rugby codes would give you an advantage. I've heard that Heeney also played Rugby. His baptism of fire would not happen in the Swans Reserves, but rather as a 7 or 8 year old when he dealt with a 85kg Islander kid running straight at him. Now Heeney is tough and no AFL player can physically intimidate him.

I once played a Masters game with Brian Fletcher ( ex Rugby League player) and was amazed at how easily and confidently he picked the AFL game up. He held every mark and his running through the lines was incredible. It was his first game.

The Academy is picking up 11 year old Fletcher's and making these tough kids skilful.

It's not cherry picking in that kids aren't deterred from playing other sports and are probably actively encouraged to keep playing whatever sports they enjoy. The academy system is aimed at bridging the gap for kids from 11 or 12 upwards who don't have a quality local AFL league to play in and develop them. But fair point and maybe an advantage for NSW and QLd is that our kids play other footy codes that offer some skills you can use in AFL. Just look at the way Keiran Jack evades tackles and the way LRT used to make his tackles stick.

[liz]

A really interesting story but seems to be missing something important, like what changed to make the Swans stay and the AFL to accept the academy plan?

I bet that Patrick Mills guy is regretting that this came too late for his footy career....

"What changed to make the Swans stay" is that the AFL turned down the Swans' proposal - ie they didn't think the Swans could sustain themselves if they cut themselves off from recruiting talent outside of NSW. It would have been a questionable strategy, not just from a pure draft perspective but also that the lack of draft picks in the main draft would have limited the ability to trade for other players too.

The AFL finally accepted the concept of an academy system after further years of lobbying (mostly by the Swans, I suspect) and the introduction of two new clubs in NSW/Queensland and the more critical need to expand the talent pool as a result. I reckon it also became more apparent just how dire the development of top end junior talent in the northern states had become. Back in 2005, it was only a couple of years since McVeigh had been drafted as a top 5 pick, and a couple of years earlier that Riewoldt had been a number 1 pick. Another 4 or 5 years later, and with practically no-one from NSW remotely looking like a round 1 or 2 draftee, and the scholarship scheme having failed to make much of a difference to the numbers being drafted and sustaining a career, they (the AFL) realised they did need to come up with a different approach altogether.

[Matt80]

It's not cherry picking in that kids aren't deterred from playing other sports and are probably actively encouraged to keep playing whatever sports they enjoy. The academy system is aimed at bridging the gap for kids from 11 or 12 upwards who don't have a quality local AFL league to play in and develop them. But fair point and maybe an advantage for NSW and QLd is that our kids play other footy codes that offer some skills you can use in AFL. Just look at the way Keiran Jack evades tackles and the way LRT used to make his tackles stick.

Great point. I was thinking that Keiran Jacks evasion skills in the middle are remarkable. It?s like he is evading Rugby League Tackles. Brandon Jack can lay some damaging tackles for someone of his size due to his great tackling technique learnt from Rugby League

Now you have Heeney who can tackle like a League player but his game awareness and AFL Skills are far superior to Karmichael Hunt. What a weapon!

Do you think Eddie and other recruiters realise that in time the NSW and Queensland Academy?s will produce ex Rugby Code players who will be too tough as well skilful enough to beat the Vic Country and Vic Metro sides.

Am I being too optimistic?

[Mr Magoo]

Does anyone think that Cherry Picking talented 11 year old Rugby Union and Rugby League players in NSW for the Swans Academy has advantages over kids in the other junior AFL programs? I personally think that the tackling and toughness backgrounds in the Rugby codes would give you an advantage. I've heard that Heeney also played Rugby. His baptism of fire would not happen in the Swans Reserves, but rather as a 7 or 8 year old when he dealt with a 85kg Islander kid running straight at him. Now Heeney is tough and no AFL player can physically intimidate him.

I once played a Masters game with Brian Fletcher ( ex Rugby League player) and was amazed at how easily and confidently he picked the AFL game up. He held every mark and his running through the lines was incredible. It was his first game.

The Academy is picking up 11 year old Fletcher's and making these tough kids skilful.

To be honest , I dont think the Academy is picking up talented 11 year old rugby and rugby league kids . From what I have seen , the only kids trying out for the academy at that age are kids who are playing AFL in one of the Sydney comps already. Maybe as they get older the academy casts the net a bit wider but in the first few years they select from whoever turns up at the trials and kids that are talented and playing rugby league or union at that age in most instances arent even thinking about the swans academy. They are dreaming of playing for New South Wales in State of Origin or Super 15.

[Ludwig]

"What changed to make the Swans stay" is that the AFL turned down the Swans' proposal - ie they didn't think the Swans could sustain themselves if they cut themselves off from recruiting talent outside of NSW. It would have been a questionable strategy, not just from a pure draft perspective but also that the lack of draft picks in the main draft would have limited the ability to trade for other players too.

The AFL finally accepted the concept of an academy system after further years of lobbying (mostly by the Swans, I suspect) and the introduction of two new clubs in NSW/Queensland and the more critical need to expand the talent pool as a result. I reckon it also became more apparent just how dire the development of top end junior talent in the northern states had become. Back in 2005, it was only a couple of years since McVeigh had been drafted as a top 5 pick, and a couple of years earlier that Riewoldt had been a number 1 pick. Another 4 or 5 years later, and with practically no-one from NSW remotely looking like a round 1 or 2 draftee, and the scholarship scheme having failed to make much of a difference to the numbers being drafted and sustaining a career, they (the AFL) realised they did need to come up with a different approach altogether.

Had the AFL accepted the plan back in 2005 I wonder if the Swan's academy development program might have produced some very good players by the end of the transition period. We are at the same point now in the process and we are getting players like Heeney and Mills. The other academies seem to be producing some pretty good prospects as well.

But in the end, as it seems to be with the AFL, if the program had failed, the AFL might have bailed out the Swans by granting them a priority pick. And surely if the Swans had exclusive access to all NSW talent, they would have put an end to it by now. Could you just imagine Eddie Mcguire if we had an exclusive access academy system. It may effectively turn out to be a de facto exclusive access system in our part of the NSW zone unless the bidding system changes to limit the number of academy players that can be accessed in a given year.

I guess we would have had Taylor Walker in the system. We let Luke Breust go. Isaac Smith might have been an academy recruit as well.

[Auntie.Gerald]

example re rugby league and Union players

I went to a school and we made the NSW State School AFL Final

In the final we played against a school that had 12 to 15 players who played Aussie Rules regularly

we only had 4 guys who played AFL on the wknd...... but all the other players played Union or League

Our school won............not just because the League and AFL players were bigger and just as fast but because there was some serious athletes..........we had 5 guys who could run 11 seconds flat for 100m

so why would you turn your back on 5 kids who can run that quick ?

Why would you turn your back on all the other kids who played union or league but were serious athletes ?

[Meg]

Yes there is a big untapped market for AFL here in NSW and the Academy is such a good vehicle to make inroads into it.

A small personal anecdote. I had a plumber in to install a new hot water system two weeks ago. He saw the Swans member tag on my key ring which led to a conversation about AFL. His 15 yo son had played rugby league up until this year but was always getting injured because a lot of the boys were much bigger than he. (I understand this is an issue of particular concern for parents of young boys playing league where strength rather than athleticism is the dominant factor.) So this year he joined an Aussie Rules team. They've only won one match, but the boy loves it, (loves the freedom to run around instead of in a line) and they celebrated the win as if it were a grand final.

The only Aussie Rules matches my plumber has ever seen are those his son has played in this year. But he got interested when I talked about the Swans, so I've emailed him the 'take a Buddy' offer for Saturday.

There are a LOT of people like that in Sydney.

[ShockOfHair]

There are a LOT of people like that in Sydney.

Strangers you've sent an invitation to?

[Meg]

Strangers you've sent an invitation to?

Ha! Nup, but I get an awful lot of strangers with foreign accents ringing me up on crackly lines telling me there is something wrong with my computer or other such thing. Perhaps I should start to talk about the Swans to them?

[Untamed Snark]

Ha! Nup, but I get an awful lot of strangers with foreign accents ringing me up on crackly lines telling me there is something wrong with my computer or other such thing. Perhaps I should start to talk about the Swans to them?

I kept one of those people on the phone for 20 minutes absolutely convinced that they had hit the jackpot in stupid.
Took them that long to figure out I was trying to give them access to my microwave not my laptop, the swearing was profuse

[Meg]

I'm not sure if Sam Naismith is formally a Swans Academy graduate but I think he can go down as another Academy success story.

For those like me who don't know a lot about Sam, I've found the following background. He grew up in Narrabri, then moved to Gunnedah in north east NSW where he completed high school. Only started playing AFL at age 16 when he went along with a mate just to have a kick at training at the Gunnedah Bulldogs, decided he liked it and so decided to give it a go.

He enrolled to go to uni in Armidale and intended to play rugby union while he was there. But someone in the New England Academy network alerted the Swans to Naismith's potential, and the Swans got him to move to Sydney, play with the North Shore Bombers and train with the Swans Academy. This led to his 2013 rookie listing, his recent upgrade to the senior list, and now his senior debut tomorrow.

The following quotes from a local ABC program at the time Sam was rookie-listed are very relevant to the Academy debate.

'Naismith is a trailblazer as the first New England North West player to be recruited by an AFL club. The Swans hope he won't be the last.

"We're hoping that a number of boys who are athletic who may not have the body composition to play rugby league can see now that AFL is a viable option and might go down and have a kick."

Naismith is pushing for a region-wide junior Auskick competition.

"When I was growing up I didn't know what AFL was, I had no idea.

"But say if there was AFL there for the younger age group there could be more (junior players) coming through the AFL ranks from the country."'

Swans recruit Gunnedah local - ABC New England North West NSW - Australian Broadcasting Corporation

I hope the streets of Gunnedah are pretty quiet on Saturday afternoon and a lot of locals are at Homebush or at home in front of their TVs!

[Meg]

Isaac Heeney to play in Grand Final curtain raiser.

Young talent to grace MCG on Grand Final day - M.afl.com.au