Australia's got talent
Sam Edmund | June 27, 2009
COME next week they will converge on Etihad Stadium in their hundreds - AFL recruiters, player agents and development coaches, all with their shopping lists for the stars.
There will be clipboards, overcoats, laptops and dark sunglasses galore for the last day of the under-18 national championships in an unprecedented four-match, eight-hour exhibition of the best underage football the country can offer.
Some clubs will have 20 representatives present for Wednesday's finale in what will be the last chance to see how the class of 2009 stack up under real pressure - on-field and off - before November's national draft.
"This isn't like watching an AFL game where you can look around or whatever, here you're always double-checking and looking at the detail.
It might be, 'How heavy is he again?', 'Could he play here or there?' or 'Is he a good kick under pressure?'," AFL national talent manager Kevin Sheehan says.
"There might only be six times he's under extreme pressure in the game. You can't be disappearing over the back saying, 'I want a cup of coffee and a hamburger' because that could be the crucial moment where you find out on the 50-50 contest whether he'll bodyline the ball. You just have to know."
But it won't just be a day for the suits.
The draft nerds of the footy public will pour in like a Star Trek convention, texting, blogging and twittering about the next big thing.
The AFL believe as many as 10,000 people will take advantage of the free entry.
"And it's the perceived pressure too, that's what AFL is about," Sheehan says.
"The very good ones, they couldn't care less if there's 50,000 there or 10, their traits will be the same the whole time, whereas others will be change the way they go about things.
"Some it doesn't worry, but others get as jittery as blazers. It's an important pressure cooker environment."
And it will be in this environment that everyone from the head recruiter to the fan will be asking the same question: What kid makes the best decisions and then executes that decision better than anyone else?
For several months that boy has been Tom Scully.
The Dandenong Stingrays and Vic Metro captain is a pure midfielder with a brilliant blend of speed and toughness and a lethal left foot.
Those who should know say his vision is outstanding and his work rate and quick thinking around contested ball situations has won many admirers.
But the 18-year-old, like Nick Naitanui and then Daniel Rich before him, has been forced to carry the No. 1 tag a long way out from the draft day finish line.
And, similarly to 2008, the final decision may yet prove not so easy.
Another midfielder from South Australia is coming like a freight train.
Jack Trengove (no relation to Port Adelaide's 2008 draft pick Jackson Trengove) has been so dominant at the championships that now many recruiters can't split he and Scully.
Compared to Mark Ricciuto at the same age, Trengove is an aggressive onballer who is strong overhead and can play forward.
Like Scully, he has an enormous engine. Trengove, still only 17, has run a staggering 15.4 beep test and clocked many sub-10 minute 3km time-trials.
But what has most impressed onlookers has been his ability to directly influence games. When South Australia has needed a lift, he has been the dominant force to ignite them.
A leading recruiter said: "Trengove is coming very hard. Before the national champs started a few weeks ago I would have said Scully was a clear No. 1.
"He's just an outstanding player and person who has everything: hardness, speed, but, more importantly, disposal speed.
"But if the draft was this week Trengove would be every chance to go No. 1. I think it's very close between Scully and Trengove."
Asked if Scully stood alone at the top, a recruiter of a Melbourne-based club said: "I don't think it's as clear as that. Trengove is obviously going very well for South Australia."
Highly-rated Vic Country forward John Butcher has been underwhelming at the championships, but has been handicapped by the lack of a pre-season that is hampering his ability to run out games.
In a draft set to be dominated by midfielders, he is still expected to hold his own somewhere near the pointy end as the clear best key-position player on offer.
Western Australia onballer Anthony Morabito is his state's best prospect, with much-hyped teammate Kane Lucas so far failing to live up to a big pre-season reputation.
Morabito, at 90kg, is strong through the hips, has head-turning acceleration and likes playing forward. Like Trengove, he is peaking at the perfect time and the fact he has played senior WAFL matches for Peel Thunder only adds to his appeal.
"Morabito, if you actually look at the last two matches that have been played, he has been the best of all four of them, to be honest," one recruiter said.
Vic Country's Gary Rohan, who this time last year was playing full-back for Cobden in country Victoria, has also surprised by thrusting himself into contention.
"I reckon he's one with a bullet," an insider said.
"He's one that's just emerging. His upside is enormous, he's really stood up in recent games and he's taken the mark of the championships."
But, as things stand, it's Scully, Trengove, Butcher and Morabito and then daylight.
The order is likely to change depending on the AFL ladder come Round 22, but most experts agree the foursome has broken well clear of the chasing pack.
And it's the uncertainty of the pecking order behind the top four that's causing most recruiters headaches.
If last year was a deep draft, this year is more kiddy pool than your Olympic-size variety.
The shallow talent of this year's intake is due primarily to the increase in the draft eligibility age, reducing the birthdate window from which to pick players from 12 months to eight months, and a raid by clubs on the better under-age prospects last year in anticipation of this year's eligibility shift.
Players born between January and April 1992 are available exclusively to the Gold Coast, who at the end of the season will sign up to 12 17-year-olds.
"Normally in a given year, in that four-month period there are about 20 that are drafted and that's about a quarter of the draft," Sheehan said.
"That's why people are saying it's a challenging draft, and it is. But GC will only take 12 of those kids."
Unfortunately for the 16 existing AFL clubs, Josh Toy will definitely be one on Gold Coast recruiting man Scott Clayton's list.
He's a Year 11 schoolboy, but the midfielder is a man on the field with a 185cm and 87kg frame.
Mention Toy's name to half a dozen recruiters and you'll get the same 'I wish' sigh. The popular consensus has him well inside the top five of the draft if he was eligible.
"He's very good. He's got a very physically developed body, which would mean that he could actually compete at AFL level now in my opinion. That's the level he's at," one recruiter said.
"Sometimes we've come to know guys who are built like Tarzan and play like Jane, well, this kid plays like Tarzan. He's got the attitude and the attack on the footy. He's just a tough unit."
Another scout said: "He's an outstanding player. He's got the potential to be playing league football right now. He's really strong, very mature.
"They (Gold Coast) are very fortunate because they've come in when there's a outstanding group of 17-year-olds.
"When you really consider the fact there's usually 25-30 per cent of the first round made up of 17-year-olds that gives and indication where they're at before they even put pen to paper."
Scully is a shy, humble kid from Berwick. Despite the obvious hype around him he doesn't wish to draw any added attention to himself.
Last week he knocked back an offer to appear on Channel 9's new TAC Cup show Future Stars and remains fiercely focused on securing the AFL future he has been set on since age 14.
Dandenong Stingrays region manager Darren Flanigan said Scully was a "ready-made AFL player".
"He's just such a professional for a kid who's just turned 18," Flanigan said.
"His attention to detail and his pre-match preparation is just fantastic and it allows him to be as good as he can be. It's just the perfect mix for a young, aspiring footballer to (a) have the talent and (b) have the work ethic and motivation to make the most of it.
"We knew about him in under-13s and you knew you had a good one your hands. He was always in the best two or three in every age group. He's very humble and was almost destined for AFL footy from a very, very young age.
"He'll leave no stoned unturned to be as good as he can be."
Trengove, who grew up in the small South Australian farming town of Kybybolite near the Victorian border before moving to Adelaide in his early teens, is increasingly blowing scouts away with his skill and ferocity at the contest.
Sturt football operations manager Duane Massey said Trengove had improved significantly over the past two years and was getting better all the time.
"I think he's really taken some big steps in the last couple of years," Massey said.
"I actually told him to change his mobile phone message about two months ago because it sounded like a little girl . . . 'Hi you've phoned Jack Trengove' . . . I think he recorded it six years ago because his voice hadn't dropped. I said, 'You better change that mate cause you're gonna have people calling you'."
Trengove can be classified as one of those kids who is good at everything.
He would have represented SA in last year's national championships but was busy on a cricket tour of England.
"He's captain of the school cricket side, captain of the school footy side. He's just an exceptional athlete who is also very, very good with his skills," Massey said.
"If it wasn't for his school commitments he would be playing league footy here.
"We rate him as our best junior for quite some time. Angus Monfries was the best one I coached here, but Jack's a special player.
"As a club we're not surprised where he sits at the moment even though the general public in South Australia still don't know too much about him."
But while Scully and Trengove appear to be tearing down the back straight while their fellow draft hopefuls just leave the blocks, there's a long way to go.
And, as Sheehan pointed out, one of the biggest days of their young lives is still to come.
"There's a long way to go. Don't underestimate these remaining games," he said.
"There's the draft camp when you're splitting people who are even and there's form later in the year because they keep developing.
"We're only in the middle of the assessment period."
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/sport/afl/story/0,26576,25694935-19742,00.html
