Why recruiters need to look outside the square

Attention recruiters: Over-age players can play the game, too. Ben Carbonaro explains.

With all the hype that comes around each year in both the Under 18 Championships and the National AFL Draft, it’s time the recruiting managers and talent scouts who are employed by each club to find new talent opened their eyes to a much greater issue.

That issue being the talented mature aged players, from the VFL-SANFL-WAFL and various local and country leagues, that are often ignored by recruiters, who instead choose to focus on the younger players who perform well at representative carnivals and the draft camp.

Players are not always ready to play football at the highest level at the age of 16, 18 some don’t develop until much later. An example of a player developing much later is Adelaide’s Ben Hudson, who was drafted from VFL club Werribee and made his AFL debut at the age of 25 or 26. It’s players like Hudson who fellow players should look to for inspiration and as an example of all hope is not lost when you are not drafted at 17 or 18.

What needs to be remembered is that not all players develop at the same age or rate as another and each one should be treated as an individual case.

Recruiting managers shouldn’t get too carried away if a particular player they have been keeping tabs on doesn’t play representative football or isn’t drafted after representing his state at the Under 18 Championships. Going and playing state league football in states such as Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia does a great deal to exposing players to a standard of football which is similar to what they may experience once being drafted as a mature aged player.

Another example of a player making the grade at the highest level of level from a competition other than the TAC Cup is Dale Morris, who is now a senior player with the Western Bulldogs and received much acclaim for restricting Andrew McLeod to single figure possessions in his debut game just days after being promoted off the rookie list.

Morris, who hails from EDFL club Doutta Stars was denied a place on the Calder Cannons list and was told he wasn’t a good enough player to be drafted to an AFL club. Looking to prove those at the Cannons wrong, he made the decision to try his luck in the VFL with Werribee.

He started in the reserves and worked his way into the senior over a period of four years, eventually being rookie listed by the Bulldogs at the rip old age in recruiting of 22.

Both Hudson and Morris are a true testament to hard work and that players who are mature aged should never give in attempts to make the grade at the highest level of football in the land.

It’s about time that those involved in recruiting for each of the AFL clubs to take a long, hard look at themselves and get out to see of the excellent talent running around at the grassroots level all over Australia.

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