There are certain goals that every AFL Draft prospect sets out to achieve in their 18th year.
Start the season consistently, play at the U18s National Championships, garner AFL interest, gain a National Combine invite, and get drafted.
It's the media playbook that provides TV news stations with their five-second audio grab and is comfortable to articulate for prospects still becoming accustomed to answering the media's questions.
Except for Sydney Swans Academy prospect Harry Kyle, none of those goals were on his mind in pre-season – none seemed feasible.
“I just wanted to get a game for Sydney's Academy,” Kyle told Craft of the Draft.
“I was just waiting each week for the teams to come out on Thursday for Sydney Academy – I wasn't even thinking about Allies or anything else.”
While he notes humility as a character strength he hopes to bring to an AFL club, there is a clear reason for his modest goal: 2025 was Kyle's first full season in Sydney's Academy.
Now firmly in calculations to be selected in the first round of the 2025 AFL National Draft, prior to this year, Kyle had played only low-level local footy in New South Wales.
From 2020-2023, Kyle played just 36 games of Aussie Rules footy.
Weekend sport was compulsory as part of Kyle's studies at an inner city Sydney private school, and Aussie Rules wasn't an option in the non-traditional footballing state.
He grew up on a diet of basketball and rugby, choosing to give up the latter after getting accepted into Sydney's Academy midway through 2024.
And he wasn't nominated or selected for the Academy – instead going out of his own way to try and forge a footy career, at the time as much for enjoyment as anything else, given a professional career seemed such a distance away.
“One of my mates got accepted in so I sent an email last year to one of the coordinators of the academy, saying, ‘I reckon I've got a good crack at making the team',” Kyle reflected.
“And then after that, they gave me a four week trial period, just training, and, yeah, just been around the boys for four weeks.
“And then, I got selected in in the Academy, which is super nice.
“(Footy) suited the way I play a bit more and I enjoyed it when I played it casually.”
Kyle has burst onto the scene, with his size, power, athleticism and versatility all catching the eye of recruiters – some of whom view him right alongside Max King as the leading prospect out of the Swans Academy in 2025.
He averaged 13 disposals as a high-impact rebounder for the Allies, while three top 10 finishes at the AFL Draft National Combine, including taking out the running vertical jump with a leap of 98cm, despite battling illness, underlined his athleticism.
Kyle represented New South Wales as a basketballer in year six, while he attributes his unique skill to his rugby background.
“The drawing and passing in rugby; you really have to commit the defender to create an overlap," he said.
“I'd say that's something I can do in (Aussie rules) that not a lot of other people can do.
“Reading the defenders and drawing them in to create that advantage for your team - I'd say that's probably the big thing that's come across.”
Kyle noted the mentorship of Sydney Academy coach Colin O'Riordan on his growth during his 2025 season, while he also developed strong bonds with King, and fellow Swans Academy draft prospects Lachy Carmichael and Noah Chamberlain.
Unlike that trio, Kyle didn't spend pre-season immersed in the AFL squad given how far back in the queue he was at that stage, and while he got a mid-season training session with the squad, those three teens' professionalism has rubbed off on him.
“It's been super cool - all of us going through the same thing, we really bonded over that,” Kyle said.
“It's definitely been good to have someone to talk to who's in a similar position and have had more experience than me.”
Having risen so meteorically across 2025, it wasn't until he became accustomed to the standard of U18s National Championships footy that it occurred to Kyle that reaching an AFL list was within his grasp.
“My running ability, big strength to a team; I'd bring a bit more of a modern way of playing the game,” Kyle said when asked what he'd bring to an AFL environment," he said.
“Also, I'd be a reasonably easy bloke to get on with and be someone you can easily talk to around the club, and if you've problem, then I could try and help you out with it.”
