Now that Karmichael Hunt has made the transition from rugby league to AFL the Gold Coast SUNS were last week looking even further afield to identify talent at its inaugural Gold Coast SUNS Talent Academy Futures Testing Day.

Sixty specially identified athletes with backgrounds as diverse as rugby league, rugby union, soccer, athletics and basketball joined GC SUNS Talent Academy coaches at Cararra Sports Stadium. All were put through their paces across a number of AFL-specific tests including a 2 km time trial, a running vertical jump test, a 20 metre sprint and a clean hands test.

The Academy’s aim for is to provide a comprehensive general education and professional coaching experience for talented 12 to 18 year old athletes in Northern NSW and Queensland. It also has broader objective of helping to expand the code’s national talent pool.

According to Gold Coast Academy Manager, Andrew Johnston, the Futures Training Day gives the club and the code an opportunity to identify and attract genuinely talented athletes capable of making the transition from one sport to another.

“It’s a two way street. We as a sport need to open ourselves up to alternative talent sources in order to retain a general competitive edge. But we also need to let people who may not have a clear idea about our game to experience what it can offer. Once kids get a proper insight into what’s involved, often the appeal of the game speaks for itself and pre-conceived ideas just fall away.”

According to Johnston, several attendees impressed on the day.

“What we saw on the day was pretty impressive. There’s definitely plenty there to work with. A few of the rugby boys showed some real tackling ability, a couple of the basketballers had terrific strong marking hands and the soccer players showed great game sense and vision. There was a couple of attendees who really shone across several of the tests we conducted. That’s what you’re looking for,” he said.

“AFL is a game made significantly easier when its participants meet a range of basic athletic benchmarks. As a guy like Karmichael Hunt shows, if you measure up physically, the skills and the match day smarts can be taught relatively quickly.”