Match Day
News Item
WILLY ALICK
Thursday, May 08, 2008 - Posted by Robert Morrison
Alick seeks Vic winter challenge
By DARREN MONCRIEFF
AboriginalFootball@westnet.com.au
Saturday, May 3, 2008
IT'S not often you hear it but Cairns footballer Willy Alick is game to say it: "To tell you the truth, I'm actually looking forward to the winter here in Victoria."
Alick was born on Darnley Island in the Torres Strait, a world away from his new surrounds of Hastings in the Mornington Peninsula region south-east of Melbourne.
The 28-year-old Alick, the Cairns Australian Football League's 2007 Crathern medallist (league fairest and best), jumped at the chance to join the Hastings Football Club after accepting an invite from the club's coach, and good mate, former AFL player, Tyson Lane.
Alick won't be the only new face braving the Victorian winter, however, with CAFL Manunda Hawks team-mate William Smetham, and Tiwi Islander Jamie Scrymgour also at the Blues this season.
Hastings Football Club was founded in 1889. The club has won 21 senior premierships but its last came in 1995. It was partly to do with this that Alick and co find themselves running around in the Mornington Peninsula Nepean Football League on chilly Saturday afternoons.
When Lane was appointed coach at Hastings, the first thing he set out to do was to look beyond its borders for recruits. Inject some new talent around the place. The former Western Bulldogs and Collingwood forward and one-time assistant coach to Chris Lewis at WAFL club Swan Districts, Lane sought a reunion with good mates Alick, Smetham and Scrymgour, having played with and coached the trio in Cairns.
"They didn't need that much convincing to come down, they were quite
keen," Lane said. "Willy had won everything in Cairns, Jamie was in the same boat so they thought to give Victorian footy a try, and they're going really well. They've played the first few games; they got much better in the second. I reckon they still haven't hit their straps but they'll get better."
It's the first time Alick has travelled outside Queensland to play footy. A stint with QAFL club Morningside in Brisbane in 2000 didn't quite work out. He says he's got about five or six years of footy left in him so he's out to make the most it at Hastings. And it's not just the chilly climate he'll have to get used to.
"I have to really work for my kicks here," the onballer said. "The traffic in the middle is pretty heavy; that's the first thing I noticed. And the tagging. I didn't really get that before so I'll have to get used to that, too."
This is exactly how Lane wants it. "I wanted to get these guys out from their comfort zone, in a new environment, for six months," he said.
That and adding something to the MPNFL. "There aren't too many Indigenous players in our league at the moment and it's something I want to change," Lane said. "Hastings have been terrific for the boys. They will certainly add another dimension to the club. It's a real pleasure to have them here."