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http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25854814-5013406,00.html
League invades AFL turf
Peter Kogoy | July 30, 2009
Article from: The Australian
GREG Brentnall thinks a homegrown Victorian will one day play rugby league for Australia.
At least that is his hope considering AFL poached one of rugby league's brightest and best yesterday.
Brentnall, who played rugby league for Australia but grew up playing Australian football in NSW's Riverina, has been at the coalface of league's push into a traditional AFL heartland in southern NSW before becoming the Melbourne Storm's first development manager.
Now chairman of the Victorian Rugby League, Brentnall's task is to identify and nurture youngsters in what is for many a foreign code in a state deeply entrenched in the indigenous game. "I'm seeing more and more boys switching football codes in Melbourne and in rural and regional Victoria," Brentnall said.
"These are kids new to rugby league disillusioned with AFL. They are coming to us because they see AFL as too sanitised. They come looking for a more physical game and have the build to play our game."
Brentnall says Tom Goodwin, a rising star in the Storm's under-18 team, typifies the changing football landscape.
"His father Andy was born in England where he played both union and soccer until he was 18, came to Australia and went on to play for both Richmond and Melbourne in the AFL," Brentnall said.
"Young Tom's dad learned the game at Box Hill before he was picked up by the Tigers and retired from the code at age 39 after spells with Devonport and Frankston."
Brentnall says Goodwin junior could have played AFL, but he spurned overtures to play for Richmond under the father-son rule, to play rugby league.
"The Goodwin case is being replicated in our junior Victorian sides as more kids with a rules background swap codes."
On figures supplied by Brentnall and the Victorian Rugby League, 30,000 boys play the game regularlyat school or at a registered club on weekends.
Much of the growth is due to the success of Melbourne Storm.
On whether Karmichael Hunt would adapt to AFL, Brentnall said: "His build reminds very much of a Paul Kelly, the former Swans champion from Wagga who could have easily made the grade in rugby league, but eventually chose to play AFL."