Journeyman junior
The Age
June 28, 2005
Wayne Mills could have been a Wallaby, but now he's hopping borders to play Australian football, Dan Oakes reports.
Last year, Queensland produced out-of-the-ordinary AFL players in Tom Williams, a former rugby league player drafted with only 15 games of competitive footy under his belt, and Brad Moran, who had arrived in the country from England less than two years previously.
And lest we get bored, the Queensland side here in Melbourne for this year's under-18 national carnival contains yet another potential draftee out of left field - key defender and captain Wayde Mills.
A New South Welshman playing in the maroon of Queensland, Mills hails from the surf hamlet of Lennox Head, near Byron Bay, but his current address is a caravan park in the Brisbane suburb of Mount Gravatt.
Mills has travelled from his home town across the border to the Gold Coast for a number of years to play football, most recently for regional powerhouse Southport, with whom he won a grand final last year.
But as the possibility of being drafted by an AFL club came closer, the Mills family decided that commuting between Lennox Head and the Brisbane home base of the state under-18 side was impractical. So Mills and his mother Sharlene upped and left nine weeks ago for Mount Gravatt, leaving father Richard at home.
The move was made easier financially by the awarding of a Mike Fitzpatrick Scholarship to the 17-year-old. The scholarships are designed to offer financial support to young players in their education and training while they pursue an AFL career.
"I think between him and his parents, they made a commitment probably three years ago that they wanted to give him every opportunity, but they're not over-the-top-type parents, they're terrific parents who are supporting him in what he wants to achieve," AFL Queensland talent development manager Mark Browning said yesterday. "We'd spoken about it 12 months ago because he actually won a Mike Fitzpatrick Scholarship through the players' association. We applied for that on the idea that, financially, if he got some support, he'd be able to relocate.
"So it's probably been a 12-month plan and that came from them more than me because, realistically, they were doing the travelling, and as I said to his dad, it's not so much wear and tear, it's how it affects his performance, just the grind of it."
Helped by his mother, Mills is studying school by correspondence from the caravan park until his time with the Queensland side is over and he can return to Lennox Head. "She's on my case a fair bit," he joked. "It's pretty hard to do it by yourself."
For the rest of the season, he will turn out for Southport, where coach Norm Dare [once coach of Brisbane] allows him some leeway as to how often he makes the trip to the Gold Coast for training. "Norm Dare doesn't mind me missing training, I just do training down at home and go up to play. He's a good bloke," Mills said.
Like Williams and Moran, Mills does not have a background steeped in Australian football. The family comes originally from Albury and Deniliquin, where Mills' father, Richard, played the game, but Mills did not take it up until 2001. Previously, he had starred in athletics and rugby union.
But Mills said that at 196 centimetres and 88 kilograms, he was more suited to AFL.
"People were saying, 'You'll probably play for the Wallabies one day', but I had a think about it and thought I didn't really want to, I'd prefer to play AFL, so I just talked to my dad about it and decided to travel to play footy."
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http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/06/27/1119724578291.html
The Age
June 28, 2005
Wayne Mills could have been a Wallaby, but now he's hopping borders to play Australian football, Dan Oakes reports.
Last year, Queensland produced out-of-the-ordinary AFL players in Tom Williams, a former rugby league player drafted with only 15 games of competitive footy under his belt, and Brad Moran, who had arrived in the country from England less than two years previously.
And lest we get bored, the Queensland side here in Melbourne for this year's under-18 national carnival contains yet another potential draftee out of left field - key defender and captain Wayde Mills.
A New South Welshman playing in the maroon of Queensland, Mills hails from the surf hamlet of Lennox Head, near Byron Bay, but his current address is a caravan park in the Brisbane suburb of Mount Gravatt.
Mills has travelled from his home town across the border to the Gold Coast for a number of years to play football, most recently for regional powerhouse Southport, with whom he won a grand final last year.
But as the possibility of being drafted by an AFL club came closer, the Mills family decided that commuting between Lennox Head and the Brisbane home base of the state under-18 side was impractical. So Mills and his mother Sharlene upped and left nine weeks ago for Mount Gravatt, leaving father Richard at home.
The move was made easier financially by the awarding of a Mike Fitzpatrick Scholarship to the 17-year-old. The scholarships are designed to offer financial support to young players in their education and training while they pursue an AFL career.
"I think between him and his parents, they made a commitment probably three years ago that they wanted to give him every opportunity, but they're not over-the-top-type parents, they're terrific parents who are supporting him in what he wants to achieve," AFL Queensland talent development manager Mark Browning said yesterday. "We'd spoken about it 12 months ago because he actually won a Mike Fitzpatrick Scholarship through the players' association. We applied for that on the idea that, financially, if he got some support, he'd be able to relocate.
"So it's probably been a 12-month plan and that came from them more than me because, realistically, they were doing the travelling, and as I said to his dad, it's not so much wear and tear, it's how it affects his performance, just the grind of it."
Helped by his mother, Mills is studying school by correspondence from the caravan park until his time with the Queensland side is over and he can return to Lennox Head. "She's on my case a fair bit," he joked. "It's pretty hard to do it by yourself."
For the rest of the season, he will turn out for Southport, where coach Norm Dare [once coach of Brisbane] allows him some leeway as to how often he makes the trip to the Gold Coast for training. "Norm Dare doesn't mind me missing training, I just do training down at home and go up to play. He's a good bloke," Mills said.
Like Williams and Moran, Mills does not have a background steeped in Australian football. The family comes originally from Albury and Deniliquin, where Mills' father, Richard, played the game, but Mills did not take it up until 2001. Previously, he had starred in athletics and rugby union.
But Mills said that at 196 centimetres and 88 kilograms, he was more suited to AFL.
"People were saying, 'You'll probably play for the Wallabies one day', but I had a think about it and thought I didn't really want to, I'd prefer to play AFL, so I just talked to my dad about it and decided to travel to play footy."
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http://www.realfooty.theage.com.au/realfooty/articles/2005/06/27/1119724578291.html
