FORMER North Melbourne and Sydney Swans champion Wayne Schwass is backing a push to have an AFL match played for premiership points in New Zealand.

AFL New Zealand will lobby the League to fixture a home and away match across the Tasman as early as ANZAC Day 2013.

Its longer-term goal is to entice an AFL club to play some home games in the country every season, in an arrangement similar to Hawthorn's relationship with Tasmania.

Schwass, who was born in New Zealand and moved to Australia at the age of three, supports the plan. 

"I'd like to see a home and away game fixtured there at some point in time," Schwass said on Friday.

"The AFL are exploring China, and I understand that from a commercial point of view, but it's only three hours across the 'ditch' [from Australia to New Zealand]."

Schwass will be an assistant coach for the New Zealand team that will take on an AIS-AFL academy squad in Wellington on Saturday, January 28.

The retired 282-game midfielder held a training session with eight of the New Zealand squad at Waverley Park on Friday and said he was "blown away" by the skill level.

With over 20,000 children aged between five and 12 now playing the Australian game in Auckland alone, Schwass can see New Zealand becoming a breeding ground for AFL stars.

"The potential of New Zealand is legitimate and it's real," he said.

"You look at some of the players that we've got here today; we've got great body shapes.

"I think it's important to recognise that we're not going to replace rugby union, because rugby union is part of New Zealand's DNA, but the reality is that there's 15 spots available to play for the All Blacks; you need to be very special.

"In the AFL we've got two new teams, that's 100 extra opportunities.

"And we're only three hours away, so the tyranny of distance when you look at Ireland, we don't have those same geographical restrictions, because it's quicker to go to New Zealand [from Melbourne] than it is to go to Perth."