What lies beneathPETER HANLON
May 9, 2010ANDY Collins' views on where to find footballers have been formed by more than a decade of coaching — at AFL clubs, in Victorian and South Australian state competitions and down at football's suburban roots.
Having played in three premierships after Hawthorn plucked him from Sandringham aged 22, he knows all too well that AFL dreams don't have to founder on the jagged rocks of teenage rejection.
Collins was coaching Coburg four years ago, when he helped oversee a screening day for AFL affiliate Richmond, where a select group of VFL players and TAC Cup graduates who'd missed out at the draft paraded their wares. Ben McGlynn, Jarrod Harbrow, Heath Hocking and James Podsiadly were among them.
"We couldn't convince Richmond to take any of them," Collins said this week. That the Tigers now employ an opposition analysis specialist, charged with trawling enemy lists for just this sort of talent, will not be lost on the long-suffering.Yet the recruiting winds have changed, propelled in a new-old direction by breezes that, after fluttering for years, are now billowing footy's windsock. Michael Barlow, Alex Silvagni, Greg Broughton and Hayden Ballantyne at Fremantle. Carl Peterson and Jarrod Kayler-Thomson at Hawthorn. Bomber Ben Howlett, Bulldog Brodie Moles, Port's Jason Davenport, the fairytale Podsiadly at Geelong.
In his fourth season as coach of West Adelaide, Collins says the shift has been felt at ground level. "For the first time ever, recruiters are speaking to me about mature-aged players, rather than me promoting those players to the recruiters," Collins said. Back in the VFL at Werribee, the idea of being a mature-aged hothouse is being embraced. Bulldogs Ben Hudson and Dale Morris made the step up from here, but not until long after they were old enough to vote. Podsiadly spent six seasons at Chirnside Park before switching to the Cats for a coaching role that took a remarkable turn, and coach Simon Atkins won't soon forget his first meeting with Barlow, Fremantle's revelation of 2010 who leads The Age footballer of the year award.
"We were sitting in a restaurant and Mick said, 'I want to play AFL footy. What can you do for me?' " Atkins says.
Atkins recently sent letters to all AFL clubs offering statistical analysis and video highlights packages of players upon request, a service Werribee provided at the end of last season and plans to bolster with multiple packages this year. The club unashamedly uses its drafting success as a selling point, with its own "academy" for first and second-year players, while offering a platform for the likes of Mitch Thorp, a top-10 draft pick at Hawthorn, to relaunch his career.
"I'd say every VFL club would have one to three players who could go onto an AFL list," says Atkins. "And I think they'd go around 32, 33 on your list — they're not going to be your last pick." Collins says the same of the SANFL, citing Port Adelaide Magpies on-baller James Ezard, who spent two years on the Power list as a teenager. "He's a Magarey medallist at 24, and he continually beats AFL-listed midfielders who are the same age or younger than him." Atkins says two years of doing exactly that was what earned Barlow his long-awaited chance.
It is a chance some never got, footballers like Alastair Neville, who Collins coached at Box Hill and Coburg and says "would have been a terrific AFL footballer". Neville trialled at three AFL clubs but became so despondent that he walked away and now lives in America. Or like the man whose name (until recently) shared the same breath as Podsiadly's in conversations of the best VFL players never to play AFL.
Nick Sautner has been the VFL's leading goalkicker a record seven times, is still ruling the Sandringham goal square, but at 32 has long given up waiting for the phone to ring. He last nominated for the draft more than a decade ago, around the time he kicked five goals for St Kilda in a practice match the night before the draft, but couldn't squeeze onto the list.
Sautner says the stories of Barlow, Morris, Liam Picken and especially 28-year-old Podsiadly should encourage all VFL players to persevere. He wishes lists had included mature-aged rookies when he was 25, and thinks a return to mid-season drafting or even the old permit system would be a positive. Most of all, he would love to have had just one year at an AFL club, to see how far a full-time training environment might have taken him.
Perversely, one knockback years ago came with the rider that the club thought Sautner was too busy working and studying to make it. "I found that a bit insulting," he says.
He thinks contemporary talent scouts would be negligent not to tap into the hardened bodies and minds that senior VFL experience brings.
"Hopefully, the recruiting officers now realise you can invest in a mature-aged player and know they will have the desire born of the difficult journey they've had to get to the AFL."
So why the historic reluctance? One recruiter says the answer is simple — a belief that young footballers miss getting drafted because they didn't show enough in the under-18 competitions. "Recruiters say they're in the VFL for a reason, and that's that they're not good enough [for AFL] and they won't get any better."
Another echoes the human tendency for stereotyping. "We put them in boxes . . . we're all guilty of putting people in boxes." Judging footballers, he says, is not an exact science. "If you saw every player play every game for the entire year, you might be able to make a better judgment."
No matter what age the fruit that's plucked from the tree, there are no guarantees of ripeness. Werribee chief executive Mark Penaluna remembers the Western Bulldogs tossing up between Podsiadly and Michael West at the 2005 draft. One was 23, the other 18. West got the nod, his knees failed him, and he now plays for Wyndhamvale in division two of the Western Region Football League.
Such misfortune can't be foretold, but the targeting of "marquee" signings from rival football codes to "sell" the AFL's 17th and 18th clubs is starting to sour the tastebuds of budding footballers everywhere. "It's insulting," Atkins says of the reported $1 million being dangled in front of rugby league giant Israel Folau.
"When you've got blokes who are second or third-year apprentices working their backsides off, or doing two subjects at university, and they see the AFL going out and getting a bloke as a novelty, it does knock them around a bit. You can understand why they'd say, 'Well, I'll just go and play local footy."'
Gimmicks aside, all are heartened that state league footballers with higher ambition have new-found reason for optimism. Which makes life more interesting for us all.
The world may be the oyster of the 70-odd teens taken at every draft, but the TAC Cup production line can't produce stories with the ageless appeal of Podsiadly.
Everyone's a winner, well, almost. "Unfortunately," says Sautner, "I'll die wondering."
THE VFL'S HIDDEN GEMS...Ed Curnow (Box Hill Hawks)The former Adelaide rookie could be in line for a second crack at an AFL club. In his second year at the Box Hill Hawks, the 20-year-old has been pushed into a greater midfield role. "With an extra year in the system, I'm a bit more confident and I'm getting used to playing senior footy," Curnow said.
Orren Stephenson (North Ballarat)Overlooked by Hawthorn for last year's rookie draft, Stephenson is the VFL's top ruckman and, at 27, looms as a prospect for those clubs pushing for a flag in the next two or three years. Stephenson grew up playing rugby league in Albury-Wodonga. "I enjoy the rugby league tackling and that sort of thing and that's held me in pretty good stead as well," he said.
Cameron Pederson (Box Hill)Versatile key position player who has shown he can kick a bag of goals and has adjusted well to a defensive role this season.
Sam Gibson (Box Hill)Proving to be a consistent goalkicker for the Hawks.
Stephen Clifton (North Ballarat)An inside midfielder who has proven to be a real find for the Roosters during their premiership dynasty.
Toby Pinwill (Port Melbourne)The 25-year-old is a gutsy warrior for the Borough in the midfield.
Ashley Arrowsmith (Northern Bullants)The former Calder Cannon, who was de-listed by West Coast, and is a well-built forward at 189 centimetres and 89 kilograms.
Matthew Little (Williamstown)The former Hawthorn-listed forward has been a sharp shooter since coming to the Seagulls. A second chance beckons for the cousin of James Hird.
Myles Sewell (North Ballarat)Who could discount a midfielder who won last year's Liston Medal?
Kris Pendlebury (Collingwood)Has improved significantly as a defender and adds some dash from half-back.
Trent Shinners (Bendigo Bombers)The talented defender, along with skipper James Flaherty, is raising eyebrows given his brilliant work ethic and hard running from defence.
Shane Tregear (Sandringham)The 22-year-old is a classy utility who can run through the midfield, play up forward or in defence.
Nick Carnell (Coburg)The 23-year-old is a tough midfielder who has been a gem in the VFL in recent times.
http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/what-lies-beneath-20100508-ukzn.html
