Port's WA draft punt
A promising West Australian rugby player is at Port Adelaide undergoing a week-long trial to try and snare a spot on the Power's rookie list after a private eight-month program to hone his Australian Rules football skills.
Former Nedlands premier grade wing Matt "Boots" Venter joined Port for training at the start of this week for assessment.
He is expected to know his AFL fate by the end of the week.
Port are looking at recruiting Venter under rookie list rules that allow AFL clubs to sign athletes outside the salary cap as long as they have not played in an AFL-affiliated competition for more than three years.
Geelong picked up middle-distance runner Mark Blicavs - who played 22 games in 2013 - while West Coast considered a similar move last year when they assessed Olympic basketballer Mark Worthington.
Similar rules have also been applied for rugby converts Karmichael Hunt and Israel Folau and the international version of the rule has allowed the recruitment of players like Tadhg Kennelly and Mike Pyke by Sydney and Irishman Sean Hurley, who is training with Fremantle.
The West Australian understands Venter, 23, an outstanding sprinter with a sub-11 second 100m time in the Public Schools' Association athletics championships while at school at Wesley College, caught the eye of one of Port's recruiters, Frank Wood, who was also a physical education teacher at the college.
Venter had played Australian Rules during Year 8, 9 and 10 at the school and had also played more than 70 games of juniors for the Applecross Hawks.
South African-born Venter chose to focus on rugby at Wesley in his senior high school years, according to Nedlands Rugby Club's Peter Sinden, who recruited him from Wesley.
"I have seen him since Year 8 or Year 9 and he was always an outstanding athlete. Very quick, a sprinter," Sinden said.
"He played on a wing in rugby, in the Wesley first XV in his final year and off the back of him and two or three other outstanding athletes Wesley won the PSA rugby championship. Give him the ball on a wing and he was going to score a try.
"I recruited him to Nedlands and he went straight from his first year in colts in 2010 into the first team the next year.
"He scored some amazing tries because he is really quick. He was a little small for the next step up in rugby."
Venter is 179cm and 83kg but he is strongly built, competitive and with great agility.
He played in Nedlands' losing grand final team in 2012, but with the encouragement of Wood chose to quit rugby to spend 2013 working on a football skills program three times a week.
