Brisbane coach Voss roots for permanent Irish AFL academy

ONE of the AFL’s most respected figures has admitted he would love to see a recruiting academy established here in Ireland.

Brisbane Lions coach Michael Voss was the man who allowed Laois player Colm Begley leave the Queensland club last year but he nevertheless remains an ardent supporter of the “Irish Experiment”.

“It would be interesting to see what the outcome would be if you could grab some of these players at a very young age and go from there,” said Voss of a possible Irish recruiting station. “You’d get some good players coming out of there, that is for sure.”

The possibility of a permanent Irish academy has been mooted in the past. One AFL agent, Peter Jess, said last year that this country should be the location for such a scheme which would seek to identify talent throughout Europe.

AFL talent spotting has already become far more sophisticated in recent years with Ricky Nixon establishing a nationwide network of scouts and organising a number of trial camps around the country.

Brisbane are one of five AFL teams to have signed up to Nixon’s talent identification scheme here. Sydney, Carlton, Collingwood have all been active on their own behalf while others like Adelaide and Essendon are beginning to follow.

“(Irish players) are very quick and they know how to motor. I can vouch for that,” said Voss.

“The way the ball moves from one end of the ground to another is quick. The game is played at a frantic pace. It is non-stop. If you look at some of the rule changes in our game over the past three or four years we are closer to that again.”

Nixon expects to send as many as 10 Irish youngsters out to Australia on rookie contracts this year and the increasing Gaelic presence is being aided by changes to the way Aussie Rules is being played.

Meanwhile, Setanta O hAilpín says he still has a lot of improvement to find, despite establishing himself in the key centre-forward position for his AFL club Carlton this season.

The former All-Star hurler has had a number of false starts in his five years with the Blues. Injury hasn’t helped, while the coaches haven’t always seemed sure where he would be best deployed, picking him in defence and as a ruckman.

Then came his infamous pre-season bust-up with team-mate Cameron Cloke and it looked like he would be returning to Cork by the end of the year.

He has flourished in attack though, making regular goal-scoring contributions as he passed the 50-mark for appearances with Carlton. Last week, he snapped a career-high four, including a high pressure effort late in the game, to seal a remarkable comeback for the Blues against Freemantle, having been 34 points down.

With a new contract offer likely to be on the table, things are now going his way but the 26-year-old is taking nothing for granted.

“It’s a great honour to have played 50 games for Carlton. I don’t look too far ahead, just week by week and do as best as I can for Carlton.

“I love kicking goals and (am) happier when we win so it was a great feeling (last week). It has been great (this season), the main positive has been time on the ground. I’m always learning but it’s tough to learn from the stands. Being injury-free has been a bonus.”