Tall story as US prospects arrive for trainingCallum 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
