One-Eyed Richmond Forum
Football => Richmond Rant => Topic started by: one-eyed on April 21, 2015, 11:48:22 AM
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Clubs heading to US to find new, tall talent
Callum Twomey
afl.com.au
April 21, 2015 7:00 AM
FOUR clubs will send recruiters to Florida next week as the next batch of American athletes take part in the US Combine.
The AFL will stage the three-day testing event at the IMG Academy in Tampa for the first time, and Essendon, Richmond, Carlton and North Melbourne will have scouts on hand.
Between 15-20 athletes from across America, mostly aspiring basketballers who are unlikely to get a chance in the NBA draft, will arrive on Monday before undergoing testing and being interviewed by the clubs.
The AFL will continue to target taller prospects, having last year seen a swarm of clubs show interest in 211cm Mason Cox, who had several interviews before choosing to join Collingwood as an international rookie.
This year's group includes a 213cm athlete, and the AFL's national talent manager Kevin Sheehan said the League was heartened by the development of Cox, Jason Holmes (St Kilda) and Eric Wallace (North Melbourne).
"The whole concept is still in its infancy, but for them to be able to compete as they are at VFL level gives us the encouragement to go back again, and four clubs will come with us," Sheehan told AFL.com.au.
"We'll look for the guys who are the perfect height for our game, but probably lack just that little bit to make the NBA. There's a terrific level of interest now."
Many of the American athletes have combined basketball with other sports, including soccer and gridiron, which Sheehan said has made for some exciting prototypes in recent seasons.
"Height is a pre-requisite to get in. We're starting at 200cm and working up. We make it fairly exclusive because we have to get our heads around them in three days," Sheehan said.
"At a minimum we'll bring two of the athletes out to Australia during finals time for an in-depth next step of coaching and development, and then presentation at the draft combine to the other clubs.
"But at best, last year we had Mason Cox out within a month after the combine as we realised we'd found a guy with some special attributes."
Taking the combine from Los Angeles to the IMG Academy in Tampa continues the AFL's integration at the world-class facility.
In January, the NAB AFL Academy spent a week training on the grounds at IMG for their international tour and the draft prospects gained plenty from living on campus alongside other emerging athletes from around the world.
"The eight other professional sports developing their best athletes were very, very interested in our athletes and what we are doing in our sport," Sheehan said.
"We think building up that knowledge at an elite facility is important and it can be housed in one spot."
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-04-21/clubs-to-scour-us-talent
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AFL has too much money, spending it like a benevolent dictator
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why do they only target players over 200cm when you can only make it as a ruckman at that height?
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Seriously only for 200cm or taller?
I'd be going for some of those lightning fast afros who look like the creator forgot to attach a fat layer to their body.
I mean seriously their 'guards' in basketball are basically as tall as our forwards/centres anyway...
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Well Lebron James is over 200cm and his agent claims he can run 40 yards in 4.6 sec. That's pretty damn quick.
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Why go all that way to botch draft picks when you can just botch them locally? Not very convenient
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Haha can't recruit here in aus, but they'll go watch 2 or 3 games in America and recruit a gun.
LOL
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Need someone 220cm that runs like the wind!
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Personally Id look at 190cm plus as kpp. Look at ohailpin worked ok after a while.
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Personally Id look at 190cm plus as kpp. Look at ohailpin worked ok after a while.
He did ::)
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Like stuffin whoa man, aeroplane food is awesome.
Whoa :shh
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Athletes going through the hoops at US Combine
Callum Twomey
afl.com.au
April 30, 2015 12:18 PM
AMERICAN athlete Jalen Carethers was the standout of this week's AFL International Combine in the US, with the 201cm prospect almost breaking the all-time 20m sprint record.
The 21-year-old, who comes from Virginia and has a basketball background, ran 2.79 seconds in the sprint test.
It was the equal third fastest time tested by the AFL (former Gold Coast player Joel Wilkinson holds the record with 2.75 seconds), and the quickest ever recorded by a player standing 198cm or taller.
Carethers was also the fastest of the 15 athletes to take part in the combine at the IMG Academy in Florida in the repeat sprint test, posting a time of 25.16 seconds.
He backed up his speed by being the second best performed in the agility run and vertical jumps.
North Melbourne, Richmond, Essendon and Carlton sent recruiters and officials to America to scout the prospects, with dual premiership player and now Blues development coach Matthew Capuano also assisting in running the drills.
AFL INTERNATIONAL COMBINE TOP RESULTS
HEIGHT
John Crnogorac (Mississippi) – 212.2cm
Brian Hornstein (Dallas) – 211.3cm
Kye Kurkowski (Nebraska) – 208.9cm
STANDING VERTICAL JUMP
Reggie Spencer (Alabama) – 84cm
Jalen Carethers (Virginia) – 81cm
James Johnson (Canada) – 81cm
RUNNING VERTICAL JUMP
Junior Fortunat (Canada) – 89cm
Jalen Carethers (Virginia) – 88cm
James Johnson (Canada) – 88cm
SPEED – 20 METRE SPRINT
Jalen Carethers (Virginia) – 2.79 seconds
Christian Behrens (Seattle) – 2.95 seconds
Len Springs (Los Angeles) – 2.99 seconds
AFL AGILTY RUN
Daquan Holiday (New Jersey) – 8.40 seconds
Jalen Carethers (Virginia) – 8.48 seconds
Reggie Spencer (Alabama) – 8.52 seconds
30 METRE REPEAT SPRINTS
Jalen Carethers (Virginia) – 25.16 seconds
Daquan Holiday (New Jersey) – 25.33 seconds
Christian Behrens (Seattle) – 25.42 seconds
ENDURANCE – 3KM TIME TRIAL
Len Springs (Los Angeles) – 11minutes 14 seconds
Kye Kurkowski (Nebraska) – 11minutes 56 seconds
Matt Korcheck (Arizona) – 12 minutes 8 seconds
Read more at: http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-04-30/basketballer-records-nearrecord-sprint-time-at-us-combine
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Kye Kurkowski (Nebraska)
No more K.K.'s please....
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fj will get his man, don't you worry, :shh
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We need a fast strong tall black guy. STAT!
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We need a fast strong tall black guy. STAT!
Like this guy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al-pjmfiFpw
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Another junket
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We need a fast strong tall black guy. STAT!
Like this guy?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Al-pjmfiFpw
haha yes!!! :thumbsup I think we're on the same wavelength on this one
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Carethers highlight video is interesting, he is 6'8 forward, looks like a frustrated mini Centre to me. He averaged around 5 points a game in his college career so his options look to be limited in pro basketball.
He has a great leap and was a great shot blocker. I think the ruck would be a cinch for him.
It's everything else that is the concern. You could teach him to flip out quick little handballs like they did with Mike Pike I suppose.
But I don't think you could ever trust an American with kicking an aussie rules footy.
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They're all probably better than Hamspud already....
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Carlton and Richmond search USA for best basketball talent in audacious recruiting bid
Herald Sun
May 11, 2015 10:49AM
RICHMOND and Carlton’s lists are in massive trouble, so where do you think their recruiters are focusing their attention?
They’re not at VFL games or country footy showdowns, trying to unearth the next Max Rooke, Ben Brown or Aaron Vandenberg.
Instead, they’ve been over in Florida, plundering college basketball talent in the search for a ruckman who can leap like Nic Natanui and scorch across the turf like Brad Hill.
The New York Times reports 15 college basketballers were invited to an AFL scouting combine, where recruiters from Carlton, Richmond and North Melbourne were among those putting the men through their paces. At least two of the players will be invited to Australia for a monthlong tryout this year.
The pick of the crop appeared to be Radford player Jalen Carethers, who was the talk of the tryout after wowing the recruiters with his athleticism.
Carethers’ 20m sprint time of 2.79 seconds would put him among the top AFL draftees ever tested — just 0.04 seconds behind Gold Coast’s Joel Wilkinson, who set the AFL Draft record in 2010.
Only difference is, Carethers is over 200cm tall.
Despite the basketballers never having kicked a football in their lives and having to ask, “Where on the foot do you want to hit it?”, they were tested over three days for their suitability to play our game.
North Melbourne scout Nick Byrne told the Times that there was no one like the basketballers on any AFL list.
“We don’t produce these types of athletes,” Byrne said.
“They don’t exist.”
http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/afl/carlton-and-richmond-search-usa-for-best-basketball-talent-in-audacious-recruiting-bid/story-fnia3v70-1227350133887
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Australian Football Visits U.S. in Search of Basketball Big Men
By SCOTT CACCIOLA
NEW YORK TIMES
MAY 8, 2015
BRADENTON, Fla. — Jalen Carethers, four weeks removed from his final game as a basketball player at Radford, was at a loss. Sports had always come easily to him, but now he was standing in the middle of a multipurpose field at IMG Academy, cradling an oblong ball in his hands and doing his best to figure out how to make this foreign object fly.
“Where on the foot do you want to hit it?” he asked.
Michael Ablett, a national talent manager for the Australian Football League, advised Carethers to snap his leg and make contact with his forefoot. The idea, or at least the hope, was to keep his foot stiff so that he would generate enough force to send the ball end over end on a smooth parabola.
“All right,” Ablett said as he took a few generous steps in the general direction of safety, “let’s have a bit of a go at it.”
A steady rain began to fall. Carethers took a deep breath, squared his 6-foot-7 frame and drop-kicked the ball, which wobbled toward the sky with the ferocity of a bat trapped in an attic. It was, if nothing else, a start.
“Spot on,” Ablett said.
Ablett was one of several officials from the A.F.L. who gathered here late last month for a three-day scouting combine that was unconventional. The prospects on hand? Fifteen college basketball players, most of whom had never even heard of Australian rules football until they were contacted just weeks ahead of the event. But suddenly, and unexpectedly, they were here: tackling and running, blocking and kicking (sort of) as scouts, coaches and executives sought to discover the league’s next great ruckman.
“We don’t produce these types of athletes,” said Nick Byrne, a scout with the North Melbourne Kangaroos. “They don’t exist.”
The combine was a sign of just how far the A.F.L. is willing to go in search of untapped talent, particularly when it comes to identifying prospects who can excel as ruckmen — an important position and one in which it helps to be very tall, very athletic and very tall. (Did we mention tall?)
“I told a couple of my teammates that I was coming out for this, and they were like, ‘Whoa, what?’ ” said Matt Korcheck, a 6-foot-9 senior at Arizona.
Ruckmen vie for the ball after stoppages, typically when it is thrown back into play or when an umpire bounces it high off the turf after goals. Each ruckman attempts to control possession by tapping the ball out to a teammate. Jonathan Givony, a basketball scout and consultant who first organized the annual United States combine in 2012, likened it to a jump ball.
“Except there are 60 to 70 jump balls per game,” said Givony, who makes mental notes of potential targets throughout the college basketball season.
In other words, everything starts with the ruckmen. So size matters, and there is — again, pardon the expression — an apparent shortage of people suitable for the position among the 23 million residents of Australia. Only a handful of players drafted each year measure 6 feet 6 or taller, said Kevin Sheehan, the league’s national and international talent manager.
All 15 athletes at the combine in Florida were at least 6-6, a smorgasbord of verticality. That many of the players had been benchwarmers at basketball programs like Nebraska, Penn State and Florida Atlantic mattered little to those who watched. Korcheck, for example, played sparingly at Arizona last season, averaging 1.2 points a game.
“You can’t expect them to pick up the skills of the game straightaway,” said Mathew Capuano, a development coach for Carlton Football Club and a former ruckman. “What you’re looking for are the little things they might do, and how quickly they’re able to improve.”
As Capuano watched Korcheck and the others work on their passing during the combine’s second day, a camera crew for Australian television arrived to film the event.
“When we did this stuff yesterday, the ball was going all over the place,” Capuano said. “But you can see that they’re actually starting to move it around now.”
It was universally understood that three days provided a narrow window to gauge potential. But there were subtle and not-so-subtle indicators. Korcheck seemed to assert himself as the alpha male whenever he stepped onto the field. And Carethers’s time of 2.79 seconds for the 20-meter dash placed him in the top percentile of prospects who had ever been tested by the league.
After an hourlong psychological assessment, Carethers stopped for a refreshment at a Smoothie King kiosk on IMG Academy’s sprawling campus. He spotted Chris Walker, a former player at Florida who had declared for the N.B.A. draft, as Walker was leaving the gymnasium. They did not really know each other, but they exchanged pleasantries anyway.
“Just basketball etiquette,” Carethers explained.
If any of the combine attendees was resistant to the notion that it was time to let his hoop dreams die, Givony offered perspective. For the hundreds of players who leave college each year, about 150 decent jobs in pro basketball are up for grabs, he said. About 45 of the jobs will go to college players selected in the N.B.A. draft, and another 100 to 120 college players will sign attractive contracts overseas.
“What are the rest of them going to do?” asked Givony, who runs the website DraftExpress.com. “I’m talking about the guys who average 5 points and 5 rebounds, guys who are role players. Those qualities actually translate well to what we’re looking for here: guys who know how to set screens, are physical, can play defense and hustle. We’re not looking for stars.”
James Hunter, a senior who averaged 5.8 points a game at South Dakota last season, was one of two prospects originally from Australia. He recalled his initial email from Givony.
“His first words were something like, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy but,’ ” Hunter said. “I mean, I’m Australian, and I’d never considered this.”
Australian rules football requires a unique blend of endurance (players can expect to run upward of eight miles each game) and strength (fans are often treated to more than 100 tackles per contest). And while the ruckman’s primary duty is to win those all-important center bounces, he must be deft enough with his hands to pass the ball and speedy enough to run with it, too.
“There is nowhere to hide in this sport,” Givony said.
Those who prove their mettle are well compensated, Sheehan said, with the average A.F.L. salary at 300,000 Australian dollars (about $240,000). Many of the league’s top stars earn more than a million Australian dollars ($800,000), and teams are eager to invest in athletes with great potential. Most contracts are guaranteed for at least two seasons.
And there was tangible proof for Korcheck and the others that these jobs are real. Three former basketball players who were discovered at past combines are under contract with A.F.L. franchises: Eric Wallace, who played at DePaul; Jason Holmes, who played at Morehead State; and Mason Cox, a former walk-on at Oklahoma State who was signed by Collingwood Football Club after an impressive showing last year.
The most recent combine was a mix of instruction and audition, equal parts tutorial and job interview. When Carethers learned that Byrne, the North Melbourne scout, and Cameron Joyce, the list manager for North Melbourne, wanted to meet with him and ask him additional questions, his roommate, Daquan Holiday, became excited.
“Yo!” said Holiday, a senior at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “Let me get half of that contract! I need new shoes!”
James Johnson, a 6-9 forward who played for Virginia, San Diego State and Liberty during his peripatetic college career, also met with Joyce and Byrne. Their questions ranged from whether Johnson would have reservations about moving to Australia (none at all), to what he considered the most challenging part of the combine (kicking), to whether he had ever gotten into any trouble (accidentally broke some gym equipment in middle school), to how he felt he stacked up to the other players (holding his own).
When Johnson was asked how he would cope with the physical nature of the sport, he said that his habit of getting into foul trouble as a basketball player might serve him well in the A.F.L. He never could have expected that his propensity for hacking opponents could potentially land him a job in Australia.
“From what I’ve seen,” Johnson said, “it’s a game for warriors, and that’s kind of like who I am.”
Later, the entire group reconvened inside a large conference room for a video presentation on “ruckwork” — the finer points of the position. Getting your hands on the ball first. Directing it to a teammate. Chasing ground balls. Tackling and blocking. Joyce showed a clip of a player leaping for a pass. Christian Behrens, a former forward at California, spoke up.
“So, jumping on someone’s back,” he said, “that’s a technique that’s taught?”
The short answer was yes.
The next afternoon, as the combine was wrapping up, the talk among the scouts over lunch was about Korcheck, who had been impressive in a short scrimmage that morning.
“He might have been playing the wrong sport all this time,” said Chris Green, a scout for Richmond Football Club.
“Well,” Givony said, “he might be playing the right one pretty soon.”
Ablett stood to address the players. He thanked them for their effort and for their willingness to try something new. At least two of them, he said, would be invited to Melbourne for a monthlong tryout with the league in the fall. But if teams were to express interest before then, they were free to sign contracts.
As Korcheck headed to his room to pack up, he still seemed to be absorbing it all. He always figured he would find a job in Tucson after graduating this month. But now, who knows?
“I didn’t know what I was doing out there,” he said. “But it felt good.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/sports/ncaabasketball/australian-football-visits-us-in-search-of-basketball-big-men.html?ref=sports&_r=2
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Any yankee small forwards we could snare?
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Any yankee small forwards we could snare?
Their small forwards are our rucks! ;D
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Any yankee small forwards we could snare?
Chip N. Dale. 19 yrs old from 198m from Vicksburg Mississippi. Hung like a horse. Run like the wind. Strong as an ox. Can jump over a barn. :thumbsup
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I think the great Tommy hafey summed this up nicely(and please someone correct me if I get the story wrong)
It was july21/22 1969 and an excited Neville crowe came to training and went to Tommy and said ....what a fantastic day tommy ,man just landed on the moon....Tommy looked at Neville and said....yes but do they have anyone up there who can play football
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Pretty shrewd move by the Tigers :clapping can just imagine a would be Lebron James as our stock ruckman terrorizing the opposition in the CBD :shh
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Let me get this straight.........
Richmond wants to recruit an ex basketball player from the U.S.A that's never played AFL before and teach them how to mark, handball and kick?........
:ROTFL :ROTFL :ROTFL
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Let me get this straight.........
Richmond wants to recruit an ex basketball player from the U.S.A that's never played AFL before and teach them how to mark, handball and kick?........
:ROTFL :ROTFL :ROTFL
Haven't we done this already with Ivan Soldo, 204cn 105kg ex-basketballer from Canberra.
:cheers
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Let me get this straight.........
Richmond wants to recruit an ex basketball player from the U.S.A that's never played AFL before and teach them how to mark, handball and kick?........
:ROTFL :ROTFL :ROTFL
Very interesting we take players who can play, strip them of all confidence and skill, confuse them with complex game plans and play them out of their normal position. We can't even train ready made footballers FFS, so HTF are we going to train people who have NFI when we have NFI, who is the genius we are wasting money on sending OS, BH??
waste of money junket
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Let me get this straight.........
Richmond wants to recruit an ex basketball player from the U.S.A that's never played AFL before and teach them how to mark, handball and kick?........
:ROTFL :ROTFL :ROTFL
We can't even teach Hampson to mark, kick and handball....
Then again some of these dudes might actually have talent and ability!
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Let me get this straight.........
Richmond wants to recruit an ex basketball player from the U.S.A that's never played AFL before and teach them how to mark, handball and kick?........
:ROTFL :ROTFL :ROTFL
We can't even teach Hampson to mark, kick and handball....
Then again some of these dudes might actually have talent and ability!
No this is RFC. They get drafted as junior champions and retire as plodders.
Or they are projects when they arrive and a cinder block when they leave.
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God bless Frank Jackson.
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Tall story as US prospects arrive for training
Callum Twomey
afl.com.au
July 28, 2015
AS CLUBS scour the market for ruckmen, four giant American prospects will take part in a trial in front of AFL recruiters on Wednesday.
Kye Kurkowski, Matt Korcheck, Jalen Carethers and James Johnson arrived in Australia last week and have been learning more of the game's skills and intricacies since touching down.
Their schedule this week will include a training session for AFL scouts from every club at Richmond's Punt Road headquarters, where they will be able to provide another glimpse of their athleticism.
Carlton is the frontrunner for Korchek, a 206cm college basketballer, but three other clubs – North Melbourne, Essendon and Richmond – also attended April's International Combine in Florida.
"Obviously we're looking at potential ruckman to build on the experiment that started with North Melbourne's Eric Wallace," said Kevin Sheehan, the AFL's national talent manager.
"We've got Jason Holmes (St Kilda) and Mason Cox (Collingwood) now playing at second-tier level in the AFL clubs and these are the next batch coming through.
"It's pretty exciting to see what they bring to the table."
With just three ruck prospects (Gach Nyuon, Matthew Flynn and Andre Parrella) invited to this year's national draft combine, clubs may see the international athletes as tall options though the category-B rookie system.
They can be automatically listed by clubs outside of the primary and rookie lists, and given time to improve their craft.
"We are after the guy who is tall, around the 205cm mark. And they've got to be super-competitive," Sheehan said.
"There's no doubt there will be plenty of skeptics out there who believe it can't work. But those sorts of people have probably never created anything new.
"You just have to look to extend your boundaries as a sport."
NAB AFL Academy head coach Brenton Sanderson has been working closely with the American prospects since they arrived in Australia last week, and has been impressed by what he has seen.
"For raw talent these young men have certainly got it. They're extremely athletic, and for their size they can hunt the ball at ground level as well," Sanderson said.
"They've still got a little way to go with their skill fundamentals, but they're picking it up really quickly. They've seen vision of our game and they want to get right into the physical element of it straight away.
"They come outside of the draft, so they could come onto a club's list almost immediately. I'm sure with their size and athleticism they will be debated a lot amongst these clubs."
http://www.afl.com.au/news/2015-07-28/us-tall-prospects-arrive-in-melbourne-for-testing
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They're all probably better than Hamspud already....
bump