As the AFL’s proposed 18th team unveiled marquee recruit Folau at Blacktown Olympic Park on Tuesday, Sheedy said AFL fans should prepare for the same controversy that has surrounded the duo’s high-profile departures from the NRL.
“Obviously rugby league will be disappointed because they’ve put so much development into him - and that will happen to the AFL one day,” he said.
“We’re going to lose one or two to rugby league. At present it hasn’t happened but there’s going to be fallout when it does happen and we’ve just got to sit there as a code and cope with that.”
While Team GWS welcomed Folau’s signature on a four-year deal, Sheedy said the club would wait until he completed his rugby league commitments before mapping out a plan for his transition to the AFL.
Folau’s fellow code-changer Hunt signed with Gold Coast in July last year but he only joined the AFL’s 17th team on Monday after playing a season of rugby union in France.
He is expected to make his VFL debut for Gold Coast in the coming weeks while Folau could potentially play a whole season in the VFL with Team GWS in 2011.
However Hunt had the benefit of playing Australian football as a schoolboy. Folau is a complete newcomer to the game.
Sheedy said Folau’s dedication would hold him in good stead for the challenge of changing to a foreign football code.
“First of all, he’s an extremely determined young man. Secondly, he’s got a build that everybody will think, ‘gee, it will take five years to build that’. Do we have to find speed? Not really, he’s got speed,” Sheedy said.
“We’ve just got to bring him around to the art of football, the reading of the play, the disposal skills and most importantly, the rules of the game.
“This will be an unbelievable challenge for all of us. We can change a basketballer over, we can change a Gaelic footballer over… the thing you know about Israel Folau is that he’s got discipline and he’s got dedication.”
Folau’s signing was announced on the same day that Team GWS unveiled its three youngest recruits - Northern Territory star Curtly Hampton and NSW/ACT duo Sam Schulz and Mark Whiley.
Sheedy said the announcement of the first four players on Team GWS’ inaugural list was a landmark day for the AFL’s proposed 18th club.
“It’s the start of an exciting era. [Folau] might be the oldest player we recruit; at the moment, obviously he is,” he said.
“Bringing a group through together where they can grow together and share different experiences about their strategies in league… this is the flavour that you can add to an AFL club.
“When you’re starting a club from scratch in a city of two million people with a zone of five million people, that’s pretty exciting.
“To have a great legend of a code cross [to your club] and say ‘I really want to be a part of this’, I couldn’t see anything not exciting.”
