26 — Centralian Advocate, Tuesday, October 8, 2013

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Draft remains centre of focusAUSSIE RULES

Nick Kossatch

Errin Wasley-Black

IT is any young footballer’sdream to play AFL andAlice Springs’ Errin Wasley-Black could have hisdream realised by the endof November.

Wasley-Black was at the

NAB AFL Draft Combinein Melbourne last weekand said he got the phonecall he had hoped fora month after the under-18 championships.

His raking left-foot kicksand accountability alongwith his ability to reboundfrom defence are a featureof his game.

The 18-year-old playedthree senior games forthe NT Thunder this yearand was set to commitwith the Waratahs for theNTFL season which startsthis weekend.

‘‘Wally called and let meknow that I had been in-vited to draft camp so fromthere I had to focus on theremaining games and getthem out of the way, un-lucky enough that we didn’tmake the finals and I had toget ready for this and startrunning and training for it,’’Wasley-Black said.

He has been training forthe past six or seven weeksto get himself as fit andprepared as possible for thearduous camp at Mel-bourne’s Etihad Stadium.

Wasley-Black played forCAFL side Rovers beforesigning a two-year contractfor the Thunder.

He was a member of theRovers’ premiership sidelast season.

Testing started last Tues-

day with body measure-ments such as weight,height and handspan, armlength and skin folds.

‘‘Later that day we had todo our jumps, standing ver-tical and then the left andright running jumps,’’Wasley-Black said.

He used the ‘‘down-time’’from the challenging teststo spend time with otherAFL prospects.

Wednesday’s testing in-volved sprints and agilitytesting and Wasley-Blacksaid he felt good and confid-ent but the nerves did notreally strike until the testingbegan in earnest.

Other than the camp, hisother highlight was on Wed-nesday evening where aninternational guest speakertook the limelight.

‘‘We had a guest speakercome in and it was EricThomas from the US . . .he’d work with athleteslike LeBron James andKobe Bryant and it wasabout motivating.

W a s l e y - B l a c k h a dwatched motivationalvideos and had wonderedwho’s voice it was inthe background.

It was not until thenthat he realised that itwas Thomas.

‘‘It wasn’t until he showedone of his videos (that) werealised who it was.’’

Thomas has worked withathletes from the NFL andthe NHL and his other am-bition he set five years agowas to provide motivationfor Australian athletes.

Wasley-Black said thebeep test and 3km runwould sort prospects out.

He would not be disap-pointed if he was overlookedin this year’s draft on Nov-ember 21 as there would be arookie draft five days later.

‘‘If I don’t get drafted,I still want to give gettingdrafted a red hot cracknext year.’’

Redtails surrender winAUSSIE RULES

Steve Menzies

Redtails Luke Adams handballsclear of the pack to the running

Michaelis McMasters during thegame against Waratahs on Saturday

Picture: CHARLIE LOWSON

IT will go down in the annals of theCentral Australia Redtails’ historyas the game that got away.

Redtails lost to Waratahs by twopoints at TIO Trager Park Oval onSaturday.

They led from the seven-minutemark when Geoffrey Miller Jrkicked truly and until WilliamHetherington goaled for the visitorsas the game entered time on in thefinal term.

Midway through the third termRedtails led by 37 points as the runfrom defence and accuracy in frontof goal enabled them to overcomesome poor field disposal and thebigger and disciplined opposition.

A slippery ground, on an other-wise perfect night for football,caught out the Redtails players

while Waratahs were at home withbetter hand and foot skills.

Redtails coach Greg McAdamwas disappointed after the gamebut not disheartened because therewere good moments the team couldbuild on.

His main concern was how theteam could not counter Waratahs’strong halfback line and tactic offlooding the defence.

‘‘They were strong across half-back and then spread wide whichcaught us out,’’ McAdam said.

‘‘We have to be smarter as playersand coaches to the tactics of theopposition and counter that.

‘‘Waratahs were a bit fitter andstronger and exposed us a little.They also won vital centre clear-ances by being hungrier at the ball.’’

Waratahs began the game wellbut were wasteful in front of goalwhich allowed the Redtails to take a

grip on the game, with Miller kick-ing the first two goals of the gamefrom set shots.

A goal to the running ReggieSmith at the 23-minute mark hadthe crowd anticipating anotherhome win to Redtails.

T w o g o a l s , t o M i c h a e l i sMcMasters and Thomas Gorey, inthe first five minutes of the secondterm had Redtails in command.

when Gibson Turner kicked hissecond for the term in time on,Redtails had a four-goal lead.

But Waratahs fought back to cutthe deficit to 17 points at the longbreak and it was game on again.

Both teams were at their defens-ive best on resumption beforeRedtails found their target to scorethree goals without reply to lead by37 points.

But when Ryan Cocks goaled atthe 15-minute mark it was the first

of eight goals for Waratahs whileRedtails only managed one morefor the game including only twopoints in the final term.

That one goal, a brilliant long kickby captain Nathan Mutch, stoppeda run of three goals by Waratahsbut an immediate reply regainedthe running for the visitors.

ScoreboardRedtails . . 3.2 8.2 12.7 12.9 (81)Waratahs . . 1.6 4.9 8.11 12.11 (83)

Goals - Redtails: Thomas Gorey 3, GibsonTurner 3, Geoffrey Miller Jr 2, MichaelisMcMasters, Nathan Mutch, Chris Cooper,Reggie Smith all 1. Waratahs: Ryan Cocks 3,Jamie McCarthy 2, Davin Hall 2, JaconSchaper, Jake Farrell, William Hetherington,Sam Nickless all 1.

Best-Redtails: Nathan Mutch, MichaelisMcMasters, Jayden Prior, Reggie Smith, CalebHart, Gibson Turner. Waratahs: Luke Harder,Hayden McDonald, James Wray, Ryan Cocks,Jake Farrell.

Time isright toget wetSteve Menzies

SWIMMING

SWIMMERS are back inthe outdoor pool in a bigway with two meets, as wellas the normal training,from this week.

The first meet in PowerIn the Water series for thisseason is on Friday.

Sponsored by the Powerand Water Corporation,this series is held acrossthe Territory with clubsgaining points towards anoverall trophy.

The other NT clubs holdtheir meets in the seriesaccording to their sched-ules and points are calcu-lated at the end ofthe series.

There are 13 individualevents and swimmers canchoose four strokes anddistances in any meet ofthe four-event series.

The events are 50m,100m and 200m freestyle,backstroke, butterfly andbreaststroke and the 200mindividual medley.

Pennants, one per swim-mer for each meet, areawarded for personal bestsbased on official entrytimes.

There will be time im-provement trophies tothree male and three fe-male swimmers whoachieve the greatest per-centage improvement inany event in the series.

Swimmers have to beregistered with SwimmingNT clubs to compete.

The second of the AliceSprings meets is on Dec-ember 7 and there will betwo in the new year.

A ‘‘Come & Try’’ swim-ming evening is being heldfor all interested people onFriday, October 18.

Everyone is invited,whether they are membersof the Alice Springs Swim-ming Club or not, to have atry at swimming from6.30pm on Friday.

There will be a mix ofcompetitive strokes withsome fun events.

Coaches David Taylorand Alanna Chalker will bethere to meet and talk tofamilies. ASSC club mem-bers will also be there.

A sausage sizzle will beprovided throughout theevening. Call Sue VanLuenen on 0408 897 721 formore information.