Karmichael Hunt playing for the Brisbane Lions?

The AFL would like to have seen that.

As unlikely as it sounds, it wasn’t that long ago that the talented Hunt had to choose between rugby league and AFL as he rose through the schoolboy ranks.

History shows Hunt went on to explode onto the international rugby league scene.

To safeguard against another potential star slipping through the net, AFL Queensland officially launched the Michael Voss scholarship scheme in Brisbane, named after the former Brisbane Lions skipper.

“Karmichael Hunt as a 14 and 15 year old played AFL footy at Churchie (Brisbane’s Anglican Church Grammar School) at centre half-back - he could have played AFL footy,” AFL Queensland chief executive Richard Griffiths said.

“Karmichael showed the necessary attributes for our game. If we had another incentive such as the Michael Voss Scholarship Scheme it might have made him think again.”

Under the scheme, Queenslanders aged from 13 to 15 will be identified - no matter what their sporting background - and developed to increase their prospects of eventually being picked up in the national draft.

Already a handful of youngsters from Aboriginal communities in north Queensland have been identified under the scheme.

“What we find is a lot of primary school children experiment with our game but when they go into secondary school, particularly private schools, they gravitate towards rugby - and rugby league is the pre-eminent football code here,” Griffiths said.

“What we want to do is provide an incentive that says AFL will assist you in your development, education or other programs that they want support with and be part of our development program.

“Hopefully we can bring them to a level so that they can go on and play AFL football.

“If the player is from regional Queensland he will be relocated to Brisbane where we have the resources, the club networks, a relationship with three or four schools that are AFL friendly.

“If we feel they have the potential to go on and be a genuine draft candidate we will provide financial assistance to help their welfare, come into the program for two to three years.”

AFL national development manager David Matthews said the league had set aside a “minimum” of $300,000 a year for the scholarship scheme.

“Scholarships of $10,000 to $40,000 are on offer for identified kids depending on their circumstances,” he said in Brisbane.

Matthews said the scheme was introduced to capitalise on the code’s popularity following Brisbane’s AFL flags from 2001-03.

“The premierships changed this market forever. The thousands of kids who registered in AusKick during that era are now becoming teenagers and we want to make sure they remain in the game,” he said.

Information from: news.ninemsn.com.au

This entry was posted by Taman Siswa on Friday, June 15, 2007 at 9:26 pm and is filed under Education News, Scholarship. Tags: Education News, Scholarship, . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.