Gold Coast keen to go offshore to find talent
THE Gold Coast Suns have expressed their interest in becoming the first AFL club to have another country as part of their academy zone.
Gold Coast are eager to explore the possibility of including parts of the Pacific Islands in their zone on the back of their increasing involvement in developing football in the regions of North Queensland.
It comes on the back of the talented 16-year-old Papua New Guinean player Hewago Oea signing with Gold Coast on a two-year scholarship.
The Suns academy already includes northern NSW, Gold Coast and the Far North Queensland stretch from Rockhampton to Cape York.
“That’s something we might want to do but we have to get North Queensland right first,” Suns academy coach Andrew Raines said.
“There is a lot of talent in North Queensland and we are still focusing on there.
“If Papua New Guinea were linked to that, it’s probably not a bad avenue to look at because it’s just above Cairns.
“It’s only an hour flight from Cairns to Port Moresby.”
Six of the Pacific Island nations including PNG, Fiji, Tonga, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Nauru are represented by a South Pacific team in the under-age Queensland Championships each year. PNG is considered to be the strongest of the island nations in Australia’s native game.
Raines said there was a lot of work to be done before successfully campaigning the AFL to make it happen but declared the increasing number of player’s like Oea, known as Ace here, could fast-track plans.