IN SAMOA, when the big men fly, it's like watching a car crash. Samoa's AFL game development officer, Mick Roberts, has watched the Pacific island's unique approach to Australian football for 18 months, and still can't quite believe it.
"It's just so tough," he says. "Just the speed, the agility. In pack marks, there's like nine or 10 guys flying with their eyes purely on the ball. It's just a car accident when they hit."
It may be brutal, even simplistic, but Roberts has no doubt Samoans are born to play AFL — it's just that they, and arguably the AFL, haven't realised it yet. Or hadn't — with each AFL club now able to offer up to 24 $1000 international scholarships to tie promising international talent to its list, recruiters are turning to the Pacific.
"Australian football is really a very natural game for the Pacific," Roberts said. "It's an embodiment of all the games they love, but it's even better — there's no offside, no knock-on. Samoans just love to play. They're tough, and their commitment is second to none. They'll hit hard, then they'll just get up and go again."
Traditionally, Samoa has been rugby country, but Australian football is making inroads. Four AFL games are shown live on TV each weekend, and last year, 4400 children aged four to 14 completed a six-week Auskick program. The under-15 kids compete in an annual carnival titled the Aaron Edwards Cup, and there's a national schoolboys under-18 championship, where the best players feed the eight-team senior men's league.
Edwards remains the only Samoan-born player on an AFL list, but the Kangaroos forward, speaking to The Sunday Age on Friday just hours after being released from hospital after treatment to his broken leg, believes it is only a matter of time until more Pacific islanders make the grade.
"You see kids who are just freaks of athletes, very athletic and fast and seem to be able to jump," Edwards says. "There's just something in the genes."
Nicholas Naitanui is a case in point. The 196-centimetre ruckman of Fijian descent is the unbackable favourite to be this year's No. 1 draft pick, and his freaky athleticism has encouraged recruiters to turn their eyes to the Pacific, with Western Bulldogs recruiting manager Scott Clayton already having visited Fiji at least twice, and Richmond recruiting manager Craig Cameron eyeing Samoa.
Papua New Guinea has 18 kids playing senior football on international scholarships in Queensland, with one, Johnny James — a tough, speedy, running type — tipped to be drafted this year.
Roberts believes he has a Naitanui in his under-18 competition — 16-year-old Lomitusi Leituala — who only needs to be given the opportunity.
"He's six-foot-seven, he's quick, he's just a massive human. Given the opportunity and the development, he would be a certain success. But he's not alone. I would say there's easily — easily — 24 guys here who could make it. I mean, the guys the rugby teams cut alone, for being too tall, or having too long a neck, are great options for us."
Edwards remains the only Samoan to have played the game at the highest level. He's fiercely proud of his heritage — his tribal tattoo across his bicep has "Samoa" written through the middle of it — and his family won't let him forget it.
"Even in the hospital (this week), Grandma came in and said I need to get my strength back, so she brought in taro (a Pacific island vegetable) and cooked bananas and corned beef," Edwards said. "She kept saying, 'Aaron, you've got to eat taro to get strong'."
Edwards hopes to return to Samoa this year for the first time since he was four — possibly to present the cup named in his honour. "It's quite funny there's a cup named after me, but it's good. I would like to go back there, to see where I grew up, and what it's like. I don't remember a hell of a lot."
Edwards is living proof of the potential in the islands, having picked up a football for the first time at 14. "I just happened to get a grip on it pretty quickly. I never aimed to get drafted, it just sort of happened. I just played with my mates to have fun."
Roberts can't believe how quickly his Auskick kids picked up the game, and hopes that in 2008, he can build on the 4400 children he coached last year. "And that includes the highest participation rate for females outside of Australia," he said proudly.
Samoa also has the world's only female national coach — Milani Feaunati — who loves the game. "The footy's such a good fit for Samoa," she said. "With rugby there's all these rules, with AFL they can run where whey like, when they like … they're free, they just love that.
"The Samoan boys are strong, they're tall, they're fast, they have courage."
Feaunati is looking forward to the third International Cup in August and after finishing eighth in 2001 and fifth in 2005, she's confident the team will acquit itself well.
Roberts can't wait to watch his team take on the Irish and the Canadians and the Papua New Guineans. "Footy might not be the world game," he says. "But it is the game for all the world — I really do believe that."
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