World Footy News

A number of hopefuls from Fiji, PNG, Tonga, Nauru, South Africa, NZ and even Denmark have been part of the AFL's International Scholarship scheme over the past eight years without the ultimate success of playing in the AFL.  Now there are just two Kiwi's at St Kilda holding that torch of what seems to be a fading light for international development.

The signing of an International Scholarship player is usually heralded with a feature article on the AFL club's website, perhaps an article on the AFL website and even sometimes some local press in the home town or country. But when their time is up they seem to quietly disappear. 

The latest to 'disappear' from AFL clubs are Siope Ngata who was a scholarship holder at Hawthorn and Giovanni Mountain-Silbery who was a scholarship holder at St Kilda.

Ngata seems likely to have a solid rugby career ahead of him playing with the Auckland Blues Under 20 team this year. In the footy he played he looked like a physical powerhouse with potential to develop his skills to AFL level but in the end to play rugby for New Zealand was probably his ultimate dream. His departure from Hawthorn was noted in a Twitter Q&A session with Graham Wright.  When asked if Ngata would follow in the footsteps of Heatherley and Tatupu at Hawthorn the answer was "Hi @jasonpan81, unfortunately we decided not to offer Siope an international rookie spot"

In 2015 when St Kilda signed New Zealander Barclay Miller and later in the year the feature article on him mentioned that he would be moving to Australia to attend Mentone Grammar and continue his footy education, it also mentioned Joe Baker-Thomas being at the club again in 2016.  But it did not mention Mountain-Silbery, so without actually noting his departure to that point the assumption has to be that he was no longer with the club.  This week in response to our direct query on this St Kilda confirmed this to be so.

It is great that clubs are willing to take a risk and try to identify and bring these guys (from overseas) along, but it would also be right to farewell them at least in a brief statement just as they usually do when any players on the regular or rookie lists finish up with the club.  Many club supporters follow the progress of these guys in the hope an unlikely destiny can be fulfilled, and then they are left wondering "whatever happened to that guyω"

So this leaves just those two New Zealanders, Miller and Baker-Thomas as the only International Scholarship holders left at any AFL clubs (Heatherley and Tatupu the only former International Scholarship holders at AFL clubs).  It seems to indicate that the scheme is not attractive to AFL clubs, and may be set to disappear altogether due to lack of interest. Even Hawthorn now have not signed a new scholarship holder for three years (when St Kilda seemed to take over the NZ territory from the Hawks). 

Success in terms of not just playing but excelling at Hawthorn for Heatherley and Tatupu (or at St Kilda for Baker-Thomas and Miller) may be the only thing that changes the minds of AFL list managers to use the scheme more widely and spread the international considerations beyond the GAA codehoppers and American ruckmen currently being signed as International rookies.

Beyond that perhaps the whole scheme needs a revamp to make it more attractive to AFL clubs or at least some better internal promotion and funding of the scheme by the AFL to get it back on track.