Recruiting James Hird Academy (Father/Son and Next Generation)

eDPS

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Nov 4, 2010
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Dec 14, 2008
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It’s an interesting debate. I was always decent at sports that required a high level of hand eye coordination (cricket, tennis, hockey etc.) but well below average at sports that required me to use my feet on a ball like footy, soccer etc. Unsure if this was my parents encouragement or if it was inherent but it would take a fine tuned long term (Decades/multiple generations) experiment to really get conclusive results. Would be great if someone would fund this (has it been done before?). It is interesting that there are many examples of people being good at both “hand eye” and “foot eye” (for lack of a better term) sports and having to choose one or the other.

Wonder how many came thru private school environments where they were identified and nurtured compared with state school where your passion is the main driver
 
Oct 4, 2013
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Wonder how many came thru private school environments where they were identified and nurtured compared with state school where your passion is the main driver
I ‘spose this could probably extend to academics as well. Most of the top students tend to come from the private schools (not all but it seems to be the trend overall). Most sports do have a tendency to have a inclusion/exclusion basis at an early age though. Some coaches probably don’t even realise they are doing it but I’m sure many kids get excluded at an early age and then don’t believe in themselves enough to ever make it at that sport once it is decided for them that they won’t “make it” at a professional level later in life.
 

Towno78

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I've always been interested in the nature vs nuture debate. Are we born with it or are we taught?

What makes a son able to play like his dad, genetics or just the fact he was brought up around footy?

I always had this feeling you were mostly born with gifts but they could he honed or lost in certain environments but of late I've swung more from nature to nuture.

As a Chelsea fan ive watched our dominant academy with great interest, and finally now it is bearing fruit as we have been forced to play them.

On the surface you assume ok, they have ploughed money into the academy, poached any young teen kid who was showing ability and the elite environment does the rest, but the more ive looked something has astounded me.

Alot of the kids in that academy, who are now performing in the best league in the world, have been there since age 6

Think about a 6 year old kid... Now think how could you possibly identify a 6 year old and say ok... He looks to me like he will have the attributes to make it at the top level in 2 decades time...

Surely all you are looking for is sharp hand eye, athletic looks .. then the environment takes care of everything else. Not born with it... It's taught.

With all that being said, clearly we can't have academy in Australia like Europe because of equilisation. Can't sit on kids for 15 years and call them yours, but fs... Different story. I do wonder if there is a way to be more Intensive for longer....if there was evidence it was more likely to churn out AFL standard players.

Maybe there could be enough fs/nga names to have them all play for the same local team, learn to play together early, form bonds, play the Essendon way

Far fetched I know but, cutting edge ideas sometimes garner results before other follow.

Any way just chewing the offseason fat. Thoughts?
I'm not sure what the debate is, it's a combination of both, plenty of science behind both sides.
 
Oct 4, 2013
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I haven't read that one but 'The Sports Gene' was a great book that covered a lot of these issues. Highly recommended.
I’ll have to look that one up. The best athletes seem to have a combination of talent and discipline but it’s hard to pin down where either come from. AFL is littered with examples of talented players who don’t make it due to lack of discipline but obviously that extends to all sports. You would think talent is more inherent and discipline is more nurture but it takes both to make it at the top level of any sport (Roger Federer etc.).
 
Apr 6, 2008
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I’ll have to look that one up. The best athletes seem to have a combination of talent and discipline but it’s hard to pin down where either come from. AFL is littered with examples of talented players who don’t make it due to lack of discipline but obviously that extends to all sports. You would think talent is more inherent and discipline is more nurture but it takes both to make it at the top level of any sport (Roger Federer etc.).

Levels of energy, the ability to focus for a long time, whether you fight, freeze or flight, how strong you react to your emotions or reason are very much personality types that go deeper than nurture.

Nurter can weaken or strengthen what you are born with but I believe that innate ability is the hardware you're born with. It is false to see all humans as the same hardware and nurture is the software that drives the hardware.

Nurture gets even more complicated when you take into account that the nurture of the nurturers and the zeitgeist social groups also play a role.

As someone who has raised 6 kids it is amazing to see the massive variety of outcomes in their lives so far.
 
Apr 26, 2007
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Some coaches probably don’t even realise they are doing it but I’m sure many kids get excluded at an early age and then don’t believe in themselves enough to ever make it at that sport once it is decided for them that they won’t “make it” at a professional level later in life.
Over 25 years later and I still harbour some resentment (don’t lose sleep over it) towards a coach in a cricket rep side I was playing in. A quick bowler, I took the new cherry for my club side but throughout this carnival, despite playing every game (except the Grand Final), I didn’t bowl a single delivery. Literally every other player in the squad got a bowl at various stages of the carnival despite being clearly inferior. I also only batted once, a not out for not many. The coach happened to be the club coach of half the rep team and no one else got a genuine look in but I was a naive young buck. To that stage I’d never been in a side before that I wasn’t an integral part of, leading player or captain. It was confidence shattering. I continued to play for many years but the passion was gone.

Incidentally after winning every game in the tournament they lost the Grand Final.
 
Oct 4, 2013
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Over 25 years later and I still harbour some resentment (don’t lose sleep over it) towards a coach in a cricket rep side I was playing in. A quick bowler, I took the new cherry for my club side but throughout this carnival, despite playing every game (except the Grand Final), I didn’t bowl a single delivery. Literally every other player in the squad got a bowl at various stages of the carnival despite being clearly inferior. I also only batted once, a not out for not many. The coach happened to be the club coach of half the rep team and no one else got a genuine look in but I was a naive young buck. To that stage I’d never been in a side before that I wasn’t an integral part of, leading player or captain. It was confidence shattering. I continued to play for many years but the passion was gone.

Incidentally after winning every game in the tournament they lost the Grand Final.
Yeah that’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. Coaches play favourites and that’s understandable to some degree at a higher adult level but coaches for juniors and younger teams need to be more impartial and ready to give everyone a go (I’m not suggesting taking a bowler off if they are destroying the opposition of course) or we will lose good players to things like loss of passion or lower the confidence level of the player.
 

BrunoV

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Yeah that’s the sort of thing I’m talking about. Coaches play favourites and that’s understandable to some degree at a higher adult level but coaches for juniors and younger teams need to be more impartial and ready to give everyone a go (I’m not suggesting taking a bowler off if they are destroying the opposition of course) or we will lose good players to things like loss of passion or lower the confidence level of the player.


It's understandable if you win the premiership...
 
I haven't read that one but 'The Sports Gene' was a great book that covered a lot of these issues. Highly recommended.

I was just about to recommend this one. Covers this exact topic.

His other book Range is also on this topic.

Goes into a lot of details about the supposed 10,000 hour rule.

Also tells the story and I may butcher it, but basic premise was a high jumper trained for decades to compete at the highest level in the world, dedicated himself to the sport and made it to be the best in the world or close to it. Was beaten by a kid that had never done high jump before in his life he was mucking around with mates on a basketball court and was then Pulled into the team by the athletics coach 9 months before the meet. Beat the guy that had been training and perfecting himself all his life.

I think the follow up to that was though that he never improved past that. He was genetically gifted to be built for the sport. But could never improve drastically because he was so late to the sport.

Also goes into details into the differences between men and women which I think should be read, that was an eye opening chapter.
 
Do we have any father sons that will choose AFL that could be good?
Have not seen any of them play. There where some wraps on Max Fletcher but I have no idea how he went this year.
 
ant555 how highly is Kdoy Brand set to go next year? Some feel in the second round, others late if not rookied. What's your take on him?
Have seen bugger all of him so I could not really say.
 
May 6, 2007
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Scrolling through the last free available JHA newsletter and doing a bit of research but the Tiwi Bombers outfit in the NTFL is one to keep an eye on.

Obviously the Davey boys (Jayden & Alwyn Jnr) are coming up to draft age whilst Brayden Rioli (cousin to Richmond's Daniel) is apart of our NGA group. Jeffrey David Simon was of draft age last year (assuming 2018 was his draft year) and also apart of our NGA group.

Jordan Boure (15 at a guess) is also from the Tiwi Islands. Has moved to Brighton Grammar School for studies but won't be surprised to see him pop up for Tiwi Islands throughout the NTFL season.
 
Further research shows me the following have been selected in try out/summer squads for there respective teams for 2020 also;

Bendigo Pioneers
Nyawi Moore (NLM)

Calder Cannons
Max Fletcher (Dustin's)
Cody Brand (NGA)
Josh Misiti (Joe's)
Moore and Misiti are 2021 aren't they?
 

calyam

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I was just about to recommend this one. Covers this exact topic.

His other book Range is also on this topic.

Goes into a lot of details about the supposed 10,000 hour rule.

Also tells the story and I may butcher it, but basic premise was a high jumper trained for decades to compete at the highest level in the world, dedicated himself to the sport and made it to be the best in the world or close to it. Was beaten by a kid that had never done high jump before in his life he was mucking around with mates on a basketball court and was then Pulled into the team by the athletics coach 9 months before the meet. Beat the guy that had been training and perfecting himself all his life.

I think the follow up to that was though that he never improved past that. He was genetically gifted to be built for the sport. But could never improve drastically because he was so late to the sport.

Also goes into details into the differences between men and women which I think should be read, that was an eye opening chapter.

'Range' is really good. Read it a couple of weeks ago. Book has a lot of lessons that would be useful for footy clubs. Essendon pushed hard against diversity off-field for years, particularly through the Hird / Bomber period, and I always suspected that limiting ourselves to Essendon people was to our detriment.
 

ghostdog

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Oct 18, 2008
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Scrolling through the last free available JHA newsletter and doing a bit of research but the Tiwi Bombers outfit in the NTFL is one to keep an eye on.

Obviously the Davey boys (Jayden & Alwyn Jnr) are coming up to draft age whilst Brayden Rioli (cousin to Richmond's Daniel) is apart of our NGA group. Jeffrey David Simon was of draft age last year (assuming 2018 was his draft year) and also apart of our NGA group.

Jordan Boure (15 at a guess) is also from the Tiwi Islands. Has moved to Brighton Grammar School for studies but won't be surprised to see him pop up for Tiwi Islands throughout the NTFL season.
I'm not knowledgeable on this; is it the case that because a player is in our NGA that we can match a bid on them? Whereas a father-son nom is taken with whatever pick we like?
 
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