That's very easy.
The VaFL is giving teams in the "home" state of football academies to "develop" talent that has established elite pathways from U8's onwards. The good ones end up playing Coates Talent League, regardless of their background, playing in the top junior competition in the country .
A sport every public and private school plays. Where that vast majority of money is spent at junior level.
Where junior clubs can call on a multitude of parents who played the sport at an elite junior level themselves, to be volunteer coaches.
Every single kid in Victoria who goes to school, no matter where their parents were born, or what sport their parents follow, are exposed to aussie rules from the first day of prep.
Perfect examples.
Andrew McGrath. Family emigrated from Canada for work when he was 12. He said himself, if he wanted to fit in at school and to do that, the best way was to play footy.
All the Sudanese boys coming through in Vic. They didn't start playing footy at 15 when they were "discovered" by a Vic NGA academy. They probably started playing when they were at primary school, because it's the dominant footy code in the Victoria, played in every school south of the Murray river.
The majority of these top kids receive sporting scholarships to the top private schools in Victoria, where many are coached by ex AFL players. Perfect example is Jamarra Ugle-Hagan receiving a scholarship to Scotch College. Or the Davey twins getting scholarships to Xavier college.
None of these kids needed an NGA academy to succeed, because their talent had already seen them receive every possible advantage the system in Vic has to offer.
Don't know about NSW, but Aussie Rules only made it in to the second tier of private schools in Brisbane 3 years ago, as a Summer sport, because they don't want the boys football commitments clashing with Rugby Union in winter, the dominant football code in QLD private schools.
It's still not played in the top tier of private schools in Brisbane.
Most public schools play Rugby League, and very few Brisbane public schools play Aussie Rules as well.
Aussie rules is far more prevalent in Gold Coast public schools, because of the work of the Suns academy on the GC, with quite a few of the schools having their own AFL academies now, aligned with local aussie rule cubs and the Suns academy.
