In the crowded sheds at frigid Casey Fields in Melbourne's far eastern suburbs, coach Danny Stevens barks his final instructions as the NSW/ACT under-18s prepare for their first match of the division two qualifying series against the Northern Territory.

Stevens makes sure everyone knows their place in the defensive zones. He reminds them the swift Territorians will play on at all costs, that if his players lay 80 tackles for the game they will win, and must go backwards with handball and not "cough it up". There is an invitation to back themselves when marking, "If you want to sit on a head, sit on a head", and the word of the day, Qantas - "let's get off to a flyer!".

Then, finally, as nervous, jiggling legs crunch boots on the concrete floor, there are the few words of inspirational rhetoric that the modern coach utters.

"Chase, harass, give them the verbal, play mind games, boys," Stevens implores. "NSW are renowned for being hard at the man, hard at the footy."

There was a time when "hardness" was a euphemism for uncultured, unskilled and undisciplined. Back when NSW/ACT junior teams were a loose combination of the lumpen lads from the "virtual Victoria" of the Riverina, the big but often awkward converts from Sydney, a few more savvy expat southerners and a handful of multi-talented sportsmen drafted from all points beyond.

There have been some dazzling individual exceptions and occasional team triumphs. But almost three decades after the Swans flew north, and despite concerted and costly attempts to develop the game here, that NSW/ACT supplied just five of the 355 players taken in the past five national drafts is a stark reminder of the job the AFL faces in cultivating local talent.

In some respects, the make-up of the NSW team that runs out to face the shivering Territorians is not much different to its predecessors. That ruckman Max Wilson - who Stevens implores to "get your knee up there at that first bounce and get us off to a big start", an instruction he will follow with almost brutal force from first bounce to last - is at the carnival, rather than playing first XV for St Andrews Cathedral School, owes more to his parents being Victorians than any shift in football loyalties among Lane Cove residents.

Others, such as the team's articulate captain, Ranga Ediriwickrama, an accomplished cricketer and soccer player born in Griffiths of Sri Lankan parents and raised in Epping, followed another familiar path to the game for Sydney juniors. A mate's team needed volunteers and he gave the strange game a go.

"I liked it so much I just kept playing," he says.

Ediriwickrama's father, Eddie, who watches as his son leads out the team, has picked up the rules quickly enough to offer his son the odd word of unsolicited advice. His grandmother, visiting from Sri Lanka and protected from the freezing wind by several thick layers of fabric, looks on with mix of pride and bewilderment.

But if it will be years before the $100 million in development funding the AFL has earmarked for NSW and Queensland over five years, and the arrival of new teams in western Sydney and the Gold Coast, creates the type of cradle-to-grave participants and fans the code craves, then the size of the AFL's investment is already evident in how it attempts to accelerate the progress of its kids and converts.

Stevens (North Melbourne) and the team's runner, Darren Denneman (Geelong), who heads the AFL's development program in NSW, are former AFL players. They are being assisted by retired 300-game Western Bulldogs defender Rohan Smith, paid by the AFL to work in development and promotion in NSW.

The coaches' preparation, vocabularies, demeanour and even their dress - team polo shirts and windbreakers, black pants - is straight from the big time. In the box Stevens and Smith are as meticulous and scathing as their AFL counterparts, studying the stats that flash up on a laptop and ridiculing players who attempt one-armed tackles, lose their feet in contests, make half-hearted efforts or kick when the team is trying to cling to possession.

After a tense first half some sloppy conversion and slack defence have allowed Northern Territory to get within three points. Yet, even as the more robust NSW/ACT pull away in the second, Stevens and Smith remain demanding, scolding a player who jogs instead of runs ("Thinks he's a bloody superstar") and another who leaves his man ("Just bloody dumb").

But if the sense of urgency and, given a comfortable margin, even paranoia seems at odds with that instruction to "enjoy yourselves", it is merely a taste of what those few players who make it to the next level can expect.

"That they are exposed to that level of professionalism, thoroughness, organisation and get to learn from people like Rohan Smith and Danny Stevens, who've played at the highest level, is tremendous," Denneman says. "They'll take that with them wherever they go, whether that's to their local club or playing in another state, or just taking some part in the game."

In the small grandstand there are more AFL scouts scribbling into notebooks or talking behind cupped hands than there are parents and friends. They are looking for new talent or, in some cases, assessing the progress of players already on their payroll under the Sydney scholarship system. Under this system clubs have apprenticed players aged 15 and over from the metropolitan region (and some areas to the north and south). In return for the $20,000 per-year they pay players, they will have first option of listing them when they are draft age. Two players (Sydney's Craig Bird and Adelaide's Taylor Walker) graduated to senior lists last year.

Of the NSW/ACT squad of 25, nine, including Wilson (Fremantle) and Ediriwickrama (Geelong), have scholarships. For Ediriwickrama, that meant spending a week during the Christmas holidays training with the reigning premiers and another trip to Kardinia Park to play in an intra-club match.

"You see your role models like Gary Ablett there training and you see how hard they work and you take that back with you," he says.

If having already been identified by an AFL club removes some of the pressure, the players are all well aware the next step remains difficult and that performance in the under-18s carnivals is crucial. Scott Reed, a multi-talented athlete from the Central Coast given a scholarship by Collingwood, has a relatively quiet day with Magpie officials watching.

Jordan Foster, a big, shy, key forward from Mangoplah-Cookardinia United dubbed "Humphrey" by the coaches, is a revelation, marking everything that comes his way.

Another who puts in some eye-catching cameos is Mitchell Frail, who took up the game last year at 17, when his tall, skinny physique was no longer suited to playing five-eighth or fullback in schoolboy rugby. He has already drawn some interest from AFL clubs. As an indication of AFL's eagerness to embrace talented athletes, and its wealth, Frail is now working in game development in Sydney during a gap year before he starts university.

"My first day of work I was at a camp for talented players and someone said, 'Hands up whose played for more than five years' and I'm thinking, 'I'm supposed to be teaching these kids'," says Frail, who has already played on the SCG as a top-up player for the Swans' reserves.

Today comes another highlight. NSW/ACT will play Queensland on the MCG as a curtain-raiser to the Victoria-Dream Team exhibition. From the current NSW/ACT, NT, Queensland and Tasmania carnival, two teams will progress to the division one series against heavyweights Victoria, Vic Country, WA and SA next month and get a chance to show their wares against more muscular opposition.

For the coaches the stated goal remains ensuring the team ethos is strong given that, for many, the under-18 carnival will be a highlight of their footy careers. At the same time, with the AFL eager for a quick return on its investment with a rise in the number of draft-ready players from Sydney in particular, they must give their players their chance to shine.

"We treat them like men, but they are still young boys," says Denneman, celebrating the team's four-goal win over NT with a post-match hot dog. "We hope they really relish the experience and make it into something bigger and better beyond today."