World Footy News

Media reports have confirmed that former player and player manager, Ricky Nixon, is on his way to Ireland to set up a dedicated recruiting system. His initial plans were reported earlier in the year and he is ready to put them into action, with Geelong, St Kilda, Richmond, North Melbourne and Brisbane Lions apparently prepared to pay $30,000 each to have access to his network.

Peter Hanlon reports in The Age that Nixon will arrive in Ireland in the next two weeks to head up the project with staff including Joe Begley, the brother of the Brisbane Lions' Irish recruit Colm, plus an elite junior coach, a sports psychologist, a university professor, an Australian expat who played in the VFL, and an ex-AFL teammate of Nixon's. Gaelic football coaches are also said to be involved, though overall the talk that the GAA may prefer this model over random searches by AFL clubs sounds more like an attempt to put a positive spin on pillaging of Irish stocks.

Scanlon wrote, "A group of 20 to 30 Gaelic footballers aged 17 to 22, but mostly in the 17 to 19 bracket, will be invited to attend a camp in either Dublin or Belfast in August. Their parents will also be invited, with presentations made on all things AFL as well as life in Australia" and "The groundwork for drawing up a list of 100 prospective draftees has been made easier by using software from Swedish company Dartfish, which AFL clubs have already used as a teaching tool, but which in this instance has been applied to footage from GAA games to form a database of players". The software allows players and events like kicks and tackles to be tagged for quick recall.

Nixon is also reported as saying that if successful, the program could be rolled out in other areas such as Africa and North America. That will be far more difficult because so much of what the AFL clubs will be looking for is demonstrated in the skills of Gaelic football. Although there are Australian footy programs in many countries, other than South Africa and perhaps New Zealand and PNG, the numbers of players regularly involved aren't there yet (1000s playing every week rather than 100s), and it would be far more difficult to attract and evaluate kids from other sports. Nevertheless, it could be an intriguing next step for international footy.

Note that the comment in the quoted article that "AFL clubs are allowed no more than two international players on their lists" is probably not correct - there was once a two-player Irish limit, but we think that was merged with the normal six player rookie list. Certainly other international players can be signed under the separate international scholarship lists (up to 8 per year, 24 total, for each club).