Blue insightBy Ashley Browne
Tue 15 Nov, 2011
TODD Elton has yet to play a game of league footy. He doesn't even know what club's colours he will be donning in 2012.
But football has been all-consuming for several years and the 18-year-old from the Dandenong Stingrays will enter the AFL system having had the perfect grounding.
Elton has played for Frankston High School, three different junior clubs - Tyabb, Frankston Dolphins and Somerville - Vic Metro and Vic Country and has been through the AIS program.
As part of the AIS program, he spent a week at Carlton. That was the eye-opener that perhaps more than anything has him ready for whichever club calls out his name at next week's NAB AFL Draft.
"I got to see the environment," he said in a recent interview with AFL.com.au.
"Off the field they are really relaxed and talkative, which was good, but when it came down the training and the weights it was all business. They know how to switch on."
Elton cuts an impressive figure. Polite, thoughtful and well-spoken, he would fit right in at a league club. On first impression, he would appear to have the makings of a future leader and he has already held leadership positions with the Stingrays.
But when you chat, he also makes it clear that he has that bit of mongrel in his make-up. Like the blokes at Carlton, there's time for banter and time to work.
"I can do that," he says. "Off the field I'm a pretty bubbly person but once I cross the white line I'm all business. A bit of white line fever."
In looking at this year's draft class, or indeed that of any season, it's about which player each of the draftees resemble. Elton has been likened to Essendon's Patrick Ryder, a description that sits comfortably with the keen Essendon supporter.
But he'd like to think there was a touch of Nick Riewoldt in the way he goes about his footy. He's tall (197cm) and mobile with a big tank for a big bloke.
"They've both got similar attributes to myself. I have been complimented on my match endurance and I really like to use my tank to push up the ground ahead of the play," he said.
He tested well at the NAB AFL Draft Combine last month, with 2.93 seconds in the sprint and 8.2 in the agility test. Both are good results for a big man. His 13.5 in the beep test also made the scouts take notice and confirmed his status, in the eyes of AFL Talent Manager Kevin Sheehan, that he is a likely top 30 selection.
By his own admission, Elton was "a bit up and down" during the NAB Under 18 Championships, but he spent much of the middle of the season in and out of hospital courtesy of a spider bite. "I just woke up one morning and there it was," he said of one of the more unusual football-related injuries of recent times.
Elton is looking forward to throwing himself into football full-time. He has plans to study once settled into an AFL system but is looking forward to the short-term future where there won't be the need to juggle his year 12 studies with his football.
"Trying to juggle school and footy is hard. Footy can be demanding so you don't get as much time as you need for the study, but I've pushed myself hard and hope to do well in year 12," he said.
And nor does he have stars in his eyes about what life will be like as a young man earning a comfortable living in league football. If he makes it in the AFL, he is looking at an annual salary of more than $300,000 within five years, but he hopes and expects that the game, not the perks, will always be the thing.
"I don't like to think about the money side of it," he said. "The love for the game is what inspires me and the week I spent at Carlton is what confirmed it for me."
http://www.afl.com.au/news/newsarticle/tabid/208/newsid/126125/default.aspx
