GNFL throws up another AFL possibility
The Geraldton-based Great Northern Football League is set to produce two of Australia's hottest football talents in the space of 12 months with the rapid emergence of Jack Martin, hot on the heels of teenage defender Jaeger O'Meara.
O'Meara, from Dongara and currently playing colts for Perth, made his mark playing for GNFL team Railways and is set to become the central point in a trade tug of war involving both WA AFL clubs and new team Greater Western Sydney later this year.
Martin, originally from Broome but attending school in Geraldton and playing for local team Towns, is part of Claremont's 16s development squad and already looms large on the GWS recruiting radar, even though he has just turned 16.
Under GWS recruiting rules, the Giants are able to use as many as four outstanding youngsters who turn 18 in the first four months of 2012 as trades with existing AFL clubs in a bid to get their hands on established AFL players of their choice.
If they don't use all four this year, they can do the remaining trades next year using players who turn 18 in the first four months of 2013.
O'Meara, rated one of the best three 17-year-olds in Australia this year, heads a list of four outstanding WA youngsters in the GWS crosshairs, along with Dayle Garlett who is set to make his WAFL debut for Swan Districts this weekend, Claremont's Shannon Taylor and Perth's Chris Yarran.
Taylor and O'Meara spent a week training with Fremantle as part of their AIS program and are also highly rated by West Coast.
O'Meara's appeal goes beyond his silky football skills. He tested so impressively at the AIS, drilling out three 2.88sec. 20m sprints and a 14.3 beep test in heat-wave conditions, that an AIS staffer suggested he try athletics instead of playing football.
It is understood the teenager has fended off initial overtures from Collingwood and wants to remain in WA.
Meanwhile Martin, a year younger, dominated the State schoolboy championships last year, convincingly winning the player of the carnival award playing at centre half-forward.
Early form this season has done nothing to dampen recruiter enthusiasm, not to mention the angst of opposition coaches.
Swan Districts development coach Steven Thomson watched Martin cut a swathe through his own impressive youngsters last weekend and said that performance gave rise to a startling prediction from an AFL recruiter at the game that the pencil-thin Martin was "AFL-ready at 16".
"He was pretty impressive," Thomson said.
"He was doing it on the bit against us.
"He did what he had to do, real easy, real easy.
"We are not hopeless. I have got three or four boys I reckon will make AFL players but he was way above the competition."
