The QBE Sydney Swans Academy is looking for the next generation of young athletes – not just junior footballers – at next month’s Academy Assessment Day.

Sydney Swans development coach, Ben Moore, said AFL experience is not a prerequisite to take part in the Academy Assessment Day, to be held at Moore Park's Lakeside Oval on July 1 and 3, but a wide range of skills and a quality attitude could get you noticed.

“Most of the kids coming to this assessment will be from an AFL background or will have played some AFL, but for those who haven’t, a lot of the sport-specific skills in AFL can be developed if they’ve come from different sporting backgrounds and have general coordination skills,” he said.

“Fundamentally what we are trying to do is identify promising young athletes and then develop promising young players.

“At that age, if you haven’t played AFL, the attributes we would be looking for would be general enthusiasm for the day, a ‘have-a-go’-type attitude, a good level of all round coordination, such as catching, kicking and throwing skills, as well as personality in terms of having a crack.”

While a number of boys will be offered places to join the QBE Sydney Swans Academy in 2014, Moore said this year’s Assessment Day won’t be aspiring young footballers’ only chance to join the Academy.

The coach said that while some young footballers show strong athletic ability at a young age, it can take longer for other boys to develop.

“We will try to select as wide a pool of boys as we possibly can and then we’ll provide them with a talent development environment, which is the Swans Academy from age 11 upwards,” he said.

“We’re effectively trying to create a wide pyramid at the bottom of the talent development program, which over the years will be whittled down in numbers as boys drop out themselves or are deselected at a much later age.

“But many characteristics that determine elite performance don’t show themselves until much later, even well past adolescence.

“Any boy that is not selected on a day like this should keep playing AFL and should keep playing their other sports and should keep enjoying the game because it’s not the finishing post; it’s just one point in the talent selection process.”

Moore encouraged all interested young athletes and their parents to come down to the Assessment Day to test their athletic skills and to learn more about the QBE Sydney Swans Academy program.

Athletes who will take part in the annual Swans Academy event will be assessed across a number of sporting challenges, including AFL, soccer and rugby league under the guidance of the Swans Academy coaching staff.

“You roll around the activities pretty quickly and there are lots of kids involved and lots of different types of activities, so it’s a lot of fun and there’s a lot of noise,” he said.

“It’s definitely a lot of fun participating in the Assessment Day, as well as fun watching for the parents.”

U10 (Born in the year 2003)
DATE: Monday 1st July
TIME: 12pm – 2pm

U11 & U12 (Born in the year 2002 / 2001)
DATE: Wednesday 3rd July
TIME: U11 (10am – 12pm) U12 (2pm-4pm)

COST - $50

VENUE - Lakeside Oval, Driver Ave, Moore Park

REGISTRATIONS - Close Monday 24th June at 5pm