That great fount of Aussie rules talent: Sydney

[SimonH]

It'd be no surprise to say that Trent Goodrem is the first Sydney born & bred boy to win a Jack Oatey Medal. Especially given the recent vintage of the medal coming into being.

But given the truly pitiful number of quality footballers produced out of Sydney (country NSW is another story entirely), can anyone say whether prior to Andrew Hayes (who I think hailed from Sydney before being picked up as a rookie by the Swans) who won his first flag in 2007, there was ever previously a Sydney boy who played in a SANFL flag?

[Pseudo]

Didn't Peter Maynard come from NSW? Not sure if he was city or country.

[am Bays]

Max Kruse (1986 premiership player) was recruited from Sydney but was a Riverina boy (Country NSW)

Mark McLure grew up in Sydney (born in Victoria) he is a duel Premiership player for Carlton.

[bayman]

there has been lots of players that have come down from broken hill & played very well...chris duthy immediately comes to mind as does a more recent taylor walker....not sydney i know but they are from nsw

[stampy]

something tells me the "magical" peter meuret was from the hill, along with steve hywood

[Mr Beefy]

Lenny Hayes is from Sydney

[whufc]

Radlee Moller, Paul Scoullar and Heath Hopwood are all recent Central premiership players who were born and played in New South Wales.

[Dogwatcher]

Country boys though weren't they?

[McAlmanac]

something tells me the "magical" peter meuret was from the hill, along with steve hywood

Correct on those.

Steve Hywood is an interesting one. He played in 10 straight wins for Ricmond from debut in 1972, then drew a semi final before winning the replay. The only VFL match he ever lost was the grand final - he transferred to Glenelg the following year.

[FattyLumpkin]

The Brenton boys - they were from Broken Hill too???

[SimonH]

No question there's a vast amount of Aussie rules talent that's come from Broken Hill (most of which flows to Adelaide, or at least did in the pre-AFL era) and other bits of NSW country, especially the Riverina. It's just that Sydney has traditionally been a very different story.

No doubt there's some decent AFL talent that hails from there these days: in addition to Lenny Hayes, there's the McVeigh brothers (Essendon/Sydney), and (at a more moderate end of the spectrum talent-wise) Hank Playfair, Dylan Addison, Paul Bevan, Kieren Jack and Lewis Roberts-Thomson.

But not much of that talent has ever made its way over to SA, hence the original post.

Radlee Moller? Never heard of him before this, but it looks like: ding ding ding ding-- he could be the winner! This indicates that he first played for Campbelltown in the Sydney comp in 1992 (continuing to run around for them in 2009), making it overwhelmingly likely he's a boy from the Campbelltown area (which is to Sydney as Gawler is to Adelaide, i.e technically just outside city limits, but in practical terms we claim it). Would be interested to hear if someone can confirm his place of origin.

Paul Scoullar I have no idea about. Heath Hopwood grew up in Nerandra (sp?).

Anyone have any advance on "Radlee Moller 2000: the first Sydney boy ever to play in a SANFL flag-winning team"?

[stampy]

maybe hooky meant narandera

[Psyber]

Is this the place we are talking about?
I remember staying a night in a Motel there, when driving back from Sydney, many years ago.
You got "Dynamo the wonder bleach" free straight out of the taps .
I decided I didn't need a shower that morning - I could have been asphyxiated.
Hopefully the water supply is better and no longer needs hyper-chlorinating...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrandera

[spell_check]

Paul Scoullar came from Lockhart, near Deniliquin.

Not a premiership player as such, but Woodville and then WWT player Robert Trkula came from metro Sydney.

[Dogwatcher]

Roy must have been trying to give him directions back there when he broke his arm eh?