Local footballer Iowani Coleman (pictured) has recently been selected for the Adelaide Football Club Bridgestone Crows Academy Boys Next Generation Academies and Father and Son program.

Coleman, 15, has been playing football since he was eight years old and is now getting opportunities to show his talent to people linked with elite pathways.

He recently finished the 2022 season for his team North Gambier, playing Under 16s as well as Under 18s and several A Grade matches.

Coleman believes his style is similar to Port Adelaide’s Aliir Aliir as an elite half back “with that golden fist on me”.

In October of this year Coleman travelled to Adelaide to play for Glenelg in the SANFL Youth Intrastate Carnival.

His team – the Under 15s Country Boys – went undefeated for the entire competition SANFL Youth Intrastate Carnival.

The Next Generation Academies (NGA) are a joint initiative between the AFL and AFL clubs and target players with Aboriginal and multicultural backgrounds with the aim of increasing the opportunities for young people who would not usually have the access to elite football programs.

Through NGA academies, young players like Coleman can be exposed to the elite football environment and top level coaching as well as access to top level facilities.

The Adelaide Crows strive to increase the overall talent pool, educate and improve the depth of knowledge and skill set of young aspiring footballers.

Selection from the NGA academies also comes from the AFL diversity talent identification testing program.

The testing was held in March this year and selected players were then invited to a high performance day in Adelaide in April, where some of the players were selected for the NGA academies.

Coleman’s participation in talent identification testing along with his representation for Glenelg ensured he was able to be selected for the program.

The talent identification testing was held at Naracoorte and was an open invite to any person of Aboriginal or multicultural background.

Those who proved themselves – such as Coleman – were given opportunities for academies.

Since the academy’s inception in 2017 it has been quite successful, with there currently being two Adelaide Crows players, James Borlase and Tariek Newchurch, who have used the academy as a pathways to the AFL side.

Last week Coleman travelled to Adelaide for his first training session for the academy, which will continue throughout next year with the next session being held in late January.

“It’s been good, I had my first session on Tuesday. I got to meet all the boys, and the coaches,” Coleman said.

Coleman has enjoyed many aspects of the academy already, however he said his highlight so far was “probably the photo taking, that was pretty fun”.

The photoshoot was used for the academy’s social media page where he got to pose in action handballing.

Coleman also had the privilege of being coached by two former AFL players during the first session of the program.

The trainings were led by Mathew Wright, who played 159 games for the Adelaide Crows and Carlton and is currently the academy and development coach for the Crows and three-time premiership player Shane Edwards, who played over 300 games for Richmond and is currently working as the Crows’ indigenous player development manager.

Coleman described having a training session with Wright and Edwards as “pretty crazy”.

“They obviously knew what they were talking about, it was just a whole different level of coaching really,” he said.

“It was great to learn from them.”

The training was held at the Adelaide Crows Headquarters at West Lakes.

“They were pretty intense drills and stuff,” Coleman said.

“We had the strength and conditioning coach come in the first half an hour, he had us doing lots of weird stretches, one that was about working our calves and it really did work your calves.”

The program will surely help Coleman improve his talent and perhaps one day represent his local club North Gambier at AFL level.