Sean Yoshiura (Mt.Gravatt), Broc McCauley (Southport) and Claye Beams (Labrador) were drafted by the Brisbane Lions as Queensland zone priority selections.
Wingman Yoshiura, 18, who finished 33rd in the 2008 world schoolboy cross country championships, was born in Tokyo and moved to Australia as a seven-year-old in 1998.
The first Japanese-born player at an AFL club, he didn’t play Australian Football until aged nine at the Jindalee Jaguars. He graduated through the Western Taipans junior development program, represented Queensland at U16 level, and played with Mt.Gravatt in the 2009 QAFL State League grand final after being school captain at Ipswich Grammar last year.
He is doing a sports science degree on scholarship at Bond University and was on his way to an exam today when his listing with the Lions became official.
Ruckman McCauley, 23 next Sunday, is a born-and-bred Gold Coaster who played a little junior football at Surfers Paradise at U10s before concentrating through his school years on soccer, cricket and basketball.
He represented Queensland in cricket at U14 level and was the goalkeeper with Mt.Gravatt in the Queensland Premier League 1st Division soccer competition in 2005 and early ’06 before returning to Australian Football part-way through the 2006 season.
A senior QAFL player at Southport for the last three years, including a premiership in 2008, he represented Queensland against Tasmania in June this year, was a member of the QAFL Team of the Year, finished equal 7th in the Grogan Medal, and a close 4th in the Syd Guildford Trophy for the QAFL Footy Record Player of the Year.
A double graduate from Bond University, he has put on hold a career as a Cavell Avenue stockbroker to pursue his AFL dream.
Midfielder Beams, 18, has followed older brother Dayne into the AFL 12 months after he was drafted by Collingwood in the 2008 NAB AFL National Draft.
Claye was a standout junior player at Mudgeeraba. He won the Gold Coast League U12 B&F Medal and finished runner-up in the corresponding award at U14 level but gave football away when told he was ‘too small’ to make it at AFL level.
He represented the Gold Coast in cricket as a wicket-keeper last year but says brother Dayne’s effort to break into the Collingwood side in his first season in 2009 prompted him to return to football mid-season. He played six senior QAFL games with Labrador in his comeback year.
Beams had been given permission to train with the Lions last week ahead of today’s draft.
