While the rain continued to fall across the Gold Coast region on Saturday morning, close to 50 SUNS male Academy players underwent performance testing at the indoor Tallebudgera Leisure Centre.

The talent weekend, conducted by external AFL Academy staff, was one of many set to take place across Australia to provide AFL scouts and recruiters with valuable information on prospective draftees.

“When the under-18 program went to Academy Series, instead of doing a whole lot of testing at the end of the year at the national combine, AFL and the competitions managers got together and realised that we could get all the Academies to do their testing early on in the year and take a little bit of the fatigue out,” SUNS Academy Manager Jason Torney told SUNS TV.

“We’re obviously doing our day today, a lot of the TAC Cup teams have done theirs over the last few weeks and then there’s the other states.”

The testing included vertical jumps, 20-metre sprints, an agility test and a yoyo test, which was introduced last year and is essentially a new and better suited version of the time-honoured beep test.

Academy members were also provided with education around nutrition, strength and conditioning and welfare.

The SUNS’ recruiting team were on hand to oversee the testing, but were joined on the sidelines by representatives from a range of AFL clubs. 

“There’s half a dozen AFL clubs here that will interview some players that they might be keen on at the draft and want to get a little more inside info on,” Torney said.

“The message from Rainesy (Andrew Raines, Academy Head Coach) and myself is just give 100% effort, it has to be your best effort because these numbers will go down and be recorded for the rest of the year.

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“If you don’t come here with a great attitude, being positive, being professional and having a real crack at all of the tests then it’s only going to affect yourself in the long run.”

The SUNS Academy are set to play three practice games over the coming weeks before the five-game Academy Series kicks off in April.