SUN SHINES ON ALEX
AS emerging AFL footballers around Australia stress about how they will catch the eye of recruiters in 2020, Manunda Hawks junior Alex Davies is sitting pretty.
The talent pathways, the annual national championship and the NAB League face uncertain futures this year, with elite clubs scrambling to identify and then select youngsters for the upcoming draft.
Davies, who would be considered a lock to go top 15 in the draft, is all but certain to walk on to the Gold Coast Suns list without having to kick a footy in 2020.
Under the AFL’s handout to the Suns last year, their biggest win is their draft concessions, able to automatically list academy talent before the draft – with Davies the first cab off the rank.
The talented teenager has been compared to Collingwood champion Scott Pendlebury and instead of running around in the NEAFL this season, through the coronavirus shutdown he has been back home with his family in City View.
The “draft year” of any emerging footballer around the country is one of the more stressful they will face in their sporting careers but for Davies, he does not have that weighing on his mind during a pandemic.
“I have had a lot of exposure to clubs, especially the Suns, I am lucky as I feel like I am in a better position than some of the boys,” Davies said this week.
“I am coming off a good bottom age year last season and what is happening now with the shutdown of footy, it will not affect me as much as other kids trying to get drafted off this year’s form.”
Broadbeach QAFL coach Beau Zorko last year said the Suns had unearthed the next Jack Bowes, another Cairns junior, in academy star Davies.
The tall midfielder played himself into a certain AFL career with All-Australian selection in 2018 and was a presence at the coalface in his four NAB League games last year, showing his knack of winning the ball at stoppages and using it cleanly.
The smiling Davies has this week started training with the Cairns-based running group Pace Project, which is run by former Olympian Jill Boltz.