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Another Labour Government initiative?Jeez these geniuss never know when to quit do they...
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/a...-recruitment-war/story-fni5f7qp-1226662030668
GWS Giants coach Kevin Sheedy is preparing a war chest. Picture: Mark Evans Source: The Daily Telegraph
GWS Giants have ramped up the war of western Sydney by spending $1 million searching for the best young talent across all sporting codes. The fledgling AFL club is about to begin setting up centres of excellence in Penrith, Camden, the north-west Hills District and at Olympic Park to compliment the main Giants underage academy in Blacktown.
GWS has 20 recruiters across the region looking at junior rugby league and union, soccer, athletics and basketball in search of talented 12 to 14 year-olds.
Giants academy manager Lachy Buszard reinforced that the club was actively watching other sports.
"That's where we've increased our investment this year, getting around to junior sport, making sure we're actively identifying (the best) and speaking to families of the kids who have talent," Buszard told the Daily Telegraph.
"There is some freakishly good talent playing in those tournaments. The next Nic Naitanui could pop up on our door step.
"Some of the kids we've seen over the last six months have certainly got a lot of potential. It's a matter of accessing them."
The Giants are also keen to give more opportunities to the best young AFL players in the region who cannot travel to Blacktown regularly.
"If you live in Camden it's an hour and a half away (from Blacktown)," Buszard said.
"The biggest trouble we have is getting kids to venues. By further investing in the region and accessing more of those kids we'll be able to train them two nights a week instead of maybe one night a week at Blacktown.
"That's obviously important for their development."
The Giants are also keen to keep developing the diversity of their program, with a number of players at their academy from Sudanese and Indian backgrounds.
"The feedback we get is that we need to involve the various communities more because their kids can't get to training.
"We've got one kid whose father was a Filipino refugee and his mother is Maltese and he's in the under 15 state squad. He's a great story," Buszard said.
The centre of excellence programs go way beyond just teaching and honing AFL skills.
"It's not just about footy, it's about trying to make them better kids and well round individuals," he said.
"We also touch on strength and conditioning, recovery, nutrition, social media responsibility, bullying at school, a whole lot of different aspects.
"It's important we play a leading role not only in providing an elite talent pathway, but understanding that from 14 through to 17 life can be pretty tough for a lot of kids.
"We play a pretty important part in showing leadership. Making sure that kids who come to our programs understand respect and responsibility so when they're at school they're doing the appropriate things and not being ratbags.
"We try to give them the idea of what it takes it to an elite sportsman."
I don't know about that, but what a do know is that they have to look at Rugby League players because their own junior development program is such a faliure. As every day go's past the Anglo-Irish game gets more desperate in NSW and OLD.
Only positive attention. Anything else is swept under the carpet like racism, Sexism. homophobia. drugs. The Anglo-Irish game is selective in its media attention, and the media pander to its whims as they are in fear of andy 5 chins and his lackies.
