The AFL has confirmed that it has had eight “genuine” expressions of interest from rugby league and union players looking to swap codes.
The AFL’s head of game development, David Matthews, told Fairfax media that players were watching the performance of Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau closely.
“We’ve fielded at least eight genuine inquiries from players out of league and union, off the back (of Hunt and Folau),” said Matthews.
“Some of whom have just basically expressed an interest, monitoring to see how Israel Folau and Karmichael Hunt go and just ‘want to let you know I’m interested’ and others who are saying ‘what sort of test do you put players through’.
“The majority of them it was, ‘I’m just letting you know, just keeping an eye on what Israel Folau and Karmichael Hunt are doing. If it looks like they’ve got transferable skills, I think I probably do too’.”
Hunt and Folau have been paid huge money to switch from NRL and play AFL – estimated to be close to one million dollars per year.
Hunt recently kicked his first goal for the Gold Coast Suns, while Folau has been able to find his feet in the Greater Western Sydney team after a slow start.
”As Hunt continues to develop and, as Folau’s progress over the last two weeks has been quite staggering, I think you’ll find that there’s a lot of people waiting to see how it all comes together.”
Matthews predicted: ”The next two to three years, you’ll see a far bigger influx out of New South Wales and Queensland.’
“If you’re a talented young sportsman in Australia and increasingly in different pockets around the world, then you’d be looking at the AFL potentially as a new career opportunity.”
Matthews went on to admit that not all players will be able to cross-codes, and some could be experiments that will not work.
“We’ve had some trials where we’ve just sort of said ‘well look, here are the attributes and most, probably the majority of those sort of inquiries are players that are of an age, or potentially a shape that aren’t always going to suit’.
“Not every NRL player is suited to the game. Not every basketballer is suited to the game. It’s a fairly diverse mix of skills that you need to be an AFL player.”
Matthews also stated Greg Inglis, who was close to singing with Essendon last year, was not one of the eight noted as ‘genuine’ inquiries.