It’s just not a big enough part of their game for kids to spend lots of time on so anyone with an AFL background has an immediate advantage in punting. There was another kid from Perth on exchange at the same time in another state and he too became the punter for his school.
I remember going through the first training session in American football and massively struggling, they were super fit and everyone spent way more time in the gym than what I was used to. 15-16 year olds who are super ripped, I was a pretty athletic 17 year old but some of them put me to shame as the sports we played here never needed that kind of gym work.
It was at the end of that first session that they asked me to kick and they were literally amazed. Tried a few drop punts first which are difficult with the pointy ended ball, then launched a few torps and caught them well and it was just awe.
Didn’t have the hang time they look for at the top level but that doesn’t matter when you’ve got distance at high school level. I was kicking over receivers in the first few games because they’d all initially setup for a 30-35 yard kick (measured from the line so that’s about 35-40 metres from where you kick), once other teams had scouted me that changed.
On the other hand they do these exercises where you basically put your helmeted head on the ground and do stretches to build your neck muscles - I couldn’t do it at all. Without experience wearing those massive helmets it’s totally foreign doing those movements.
And having people dive into your knees with a helmet is very fucking weird. They have to touch first but after that it’s fair game. They’re all running plays where they want to send the RB around the end of the line so they try and collapse the defence and they got me every bloody time because I’d never experienced anything like that. In AFL you don’t get people pushing you in the chest then immediately lunging into your legs, add the pads and helmets in which totally change how you play and it’s suddenly a totally foreign experience.