World Footy News

The weather was kind. Well it was not hot. Maybe just a little damp even, and about 20 degrees Celsius. The second session for the first graduates of American Footy Star ran out onto North Port Oval joining the Port Melbourne pre-season training.

The timing, curious. By now Port Melbourne pretty much have their lists finalised. But better late than never.

Both former college athletes Charles Winston III and Torrey Harkness could have made it to the big time of American sports. But that was not to be. These two were found by Miro Gladovic in his campaign to convert and American to a footy star. Has he done it? Not yet*.
Back in L.A last year he took a bunch of American athletes and introduced them to Aussie Rules. Selecting those that could perform in the Australia game that demands high endurance combined with burst speed and some specific skill sets that….well just take time to master.

But don’t be confused. This has nothing to do with another camp that selects high performance former college athletes and tests them in L.A. That one climaxes with athletes being selected to come to Melbourne for the AFL Draft Combine along with the best footy talent from Australia. That one is run by the AFL, with the assistance of the USAFL.

Miro’s program also brings the best athletes from his squad and brings them to Melbourne. And that’s where we arrive back at Port Melbourne. The standalone VFL club that is steeped in history were minor Premiers in 2014. They have former Hawthorn premiership player Gary Ayres as senior coach and he has had a couple of turns at being senior coach in the AFL. Oh and did I mention the assistance from the USAFL? Well from USAFL clubs at least. Winston and Harkness both played in the Western Regionals** in 2014, although I thought it was with the L.A. Dragons, but it seems they were listed on a team sheet for San Diego.

Oh yes back to Port Melbourne. Harkness and Winston arrived on Friday last week in Melbourne and literally hit the ground running. In temperatures closer to 30 degrees Celsius the duo were introduced and took part in training. They were spared the full session by the fitness staff who didn’t want to see them burnt out on their first night and just off the plane to boot. After a full weekend to recover they again hit the track this evening (Monday).

All in all a pretty standard preseason training night. Kick to kick before training got underway. Yes some suspect American actions, high ball drops, balance not quite right, body weight
going backwards as they kicked, but kicking straight and mostly with the ball spinning backward end over end.

The group is called in to the rooms for a lengthy briefing. Everyone emerges again and the traditional warm up lap as a group in underway. Followed up by a full lap at a striding pace after the group splits in half. Our Americans sit mid pack, comfortable. Now two lines sprint about 30m with plAyres in the back line trying to catch those in front with push up punishment for those that are caught. The Americans show some impressive explosive pace off the mark.

With the formalities over multiple groups carry out multiple drills. The Americans stay together in each drill during the evening. The first involves passing by foot short passing about 20 metres. Again their style stands out as much for the inadequacies as the results. Again a mixture of hitting targets with straight kicks and the occasional short or long kick missing targets. But it is the high arc of the kicks that gives them away. Meanwhile the other players are hitting much flatter easier to mark passes; they sometime miss too, but not as often. Coach Ayres points out to his assistant an exaggerated version of the drop from Winston.

A series of gradually longer drills and a lot of focus on keeping possession and using the ball with a numerical advantage are going on. The Americans move well in the drills, pace is on their side. Picking up a loose ball is no problem, they swoop on it and they are off. Powerful through the hips, not unlike Karmichael Hunt, using this strength to run, move and evade tacklers in contested situations.

Their handball skills are adequate. It runs through my mind how they could play in a high standard match. Maybe as a midfielder, (but I didn’t get to see how they read the ball from a ruck contest) they would be a good chance to bust a pack and come out and dish off a handball to a runner and only ever kicking if it was really necessary. Then I remember that is not really something I have to worry about.

Those that do have to worry about it, the Port coaching staff including Peter ‘Crackers’ Keenan were generous with their time taking the guys aside when they looked a little lost and were giving plenty of valuable advice.

The guys have good hands to and mark most balls that come their way. But they are also genuine rover size in, height (although a little stockier) and this will definitely disadvantage them in modern day football. One other not so obvious disadvantage is their similarity in physical size, ability and style. It could come to the point where the club may only choose one due to their similarity where a taller option might have seen two picked up (again speculating needlessly perhaps).

I don’t know how long Charles and Torrey will be trialling with Port but the longer the better for them. It is after all only their second run and training with a VFL club that has been training together for months. Hopefully they can rapidly adapt and start to look at home and ultimately be a success on Australian shores.

At this stage though from what I saw tonight I doubt they will end up on the Port Melbourne list (it definitely won’t be from lack of effort) based mostly on their kicking ability. There may be clubs in Amateur or Country footy that may want to take a look at these guys and setting them up for a season should Port Melbourne decide they don’t have room for the duo.

And if the VFL/AFL dream doesn’t come true, with two-three seasons of good footy under their belts they could definitely add something dangerous to the USA midfield at IC17 that might counter the likes of PNG.

*The observations here are all purely my opinion. I have never been involved with footy at the VFL level or pretend to know what Port Melbourne will do or think.

**The Western Regionals is a tournament weekend for clubs in the West of the USA. The tournament aims to provide multiple quality footy matches with funded organisation (umpires, venues etc.). The tournament is used in calculating seedings of teams for the ultimate tournament and prize in US footy- the National Championships. 2015 will see other regional tournaments played across the US with the first four announced. https://usafl.com/news/20150215/four-...-announced