But the man charged with assembling young talent for the AFL’s proposed 18th club in western Sydney is confident the venture will be a success.
McConnell, who has spent the past five years as head coach of the elite AIS/AFL Academy squad, begins his new role as Western Sydney’s high performance manager on July 1.
His first task will be to cast an eye over the young guns taking part in the national under-18 and under-16 championships with a view to compiling a list of potential players for Western Sydney’s AFL debut in 2012.
However, McConnell said his task was made more complicated by the absence of any firm rules or timeframe for the proposed club’s entry to the AFL.
“There’s no doubt it’s our intention to put out a very competitive list from the very beginning, so there’s a fair bit to do to achieve that,” he said on Thursday.
“The unfortunate thing is that there are no rules that we’re working to.
“The AFL Commission will ultimately set those up so we’ve got a bit of work to do in terms of working out what the talent pool looks like and then working out how that sits against the rules we’ll get to list those boys.”
McConnell said he expected Western Sydney’s concessions to be similar to those afforded the new Gold Coast club, which is set to make its AFL debut in 2011.
Gold Coast’s concessions include priority access to a pool of 17-year-olds born between January and April, 1992; the first five picks in the 2009 NAB AFL Rookie Draft; and the first pick in each round of the 2010 NAB AFL National Draft, as well as picks 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 in round one.
“My brief over the last number of years has been to work with the best 30 boys in Australia,” McConnell said.
“It would seem that the Gold Coast will have access to up to 20 of that current group of 30 boys. I wouldn’t mind coaching them.”
Like Gold Coast, the Western Sydney team will use a significant proportion of its draft concessions as leverage to add experienced players to the inaugural squad.
“That’s part of the reason why, in the short term, we’ll get access to more of the young talent than what ultimately might finish up on our list – so we can access some of the existing talent on an AFL list,” McConnell said.
“Again, those rules aren’t in place, so my brief will be to find as many of those as I can, make them as good as they can be, to bulletproof them for what lies ahead and allow us to access some existing talent on an AFL list.”
