The Greater Western Sydney GIANTS Academy has proven it's commitment to keeping the dreams of young AFL hopefuls alive by providing a structured development pathway for young players.

The GIANTS Academy flew in players from around the GIANTS zone to Western Sydney last week for a development camp in the Under 16’s Academy squad.

The camp consisted of 30 players who missed out on selection in the NSW/ACT RAMS squad, which is currently competing in the national championships.

GIANTS Academy manager, Lachlan Buszard said the aim of the camp was to provide these young men with the opportunity to learn and develop their football skills to make them better people and better players in the future.

“It’s a development camp, so the players can come in and understand where they need to get to and listen to the coaching expertise from our academy coach in the likes of Paul Kelly, to help them out in their football journey,” Buszard said last week.

The week intense program saw the boys undertake multiple training sessions and compete in a practice match against the U15 NSW CHS State All Schools team along with the opportunity to go along and watch a GIANTS training session.

The Academy manager said the camp involved a “combination of training and playing, review of the game, talk about what we did right, what we did wrong and obviously help them out with their football.”

Buszard also added that their was far more to take from the camp than simply building on football skills and that the week had a strong focus on improving personal needs and general life skills, as well as stressing the importance of an education and finishing school.

“The curriculum takes into consideration health, harmony and education which are the three key pillars of the club, so it’s making sure they the club trains them to concentrate on their diet, dehydration, their rehabilitation and then also making sure they do from the off-field side of things look after their bodies, make sure they’re learning from an education point of view through vision and obviously skill based competencies as well,” he said.

As part of their development week, the group also took part in a media training program, which Buszard said hopefully provided the boys with, “the opportunity to understand how the media works, what its used for and understand the pitfalls of social media and what it can lead to with youth aged people.”