FORMER Salisbury and Angle Vale junior Leek Alleer made his SANFL debut in Central District’s round seven win over Sturt, and after five strong games in his new home in the backline, he was named round 11’s SANFL Breakthrough Player.

Alleer has been playing football for most of his life after moving to Australia from South Sudan in 2006, aged five. But it wasn’t until he moved clubs to Angle Vale in his early teens that he realised he wanted to take his footy as far as he could.

“When I came over to Australia, I had a lot of my uncles and aunties already living here, and they were watching football and supporting the Crows right from the start,” he said. “So I was introduced to the game in almost a family setting...I’ve always had cousins playing with me, and after we moved from Salisbury to Andrews Farm we decided to all go and play at Angle Vale together.

“It wasn’t until around under-16s that I started taking it a little bit seriously – when I was 13 I started doing a lot of stuff with multicultural academies (such as the Adelaide Crows’ Next Generation Academy) and I started doing some SANFL academies; but I wasn’t really getting scouted to development squads, and my friends were.”

Not discouraged, Alleer dived into the deep end when his close friend went out to Central District’s under-18 trials. “My mate told me he was out at Centrals trying out for the under-18s as a bottom-ager, and he asked if I wanted to come trial for the under-16s,” he said.

“I was a bit hesitant and a little scared because I knew a lot of my mate’s stories who had previously been with development squads, but they were on their way out of the system because they weren’t really going in that direction with their football.

“That was kind of the turning point for me, because doing something with my football has always been something I want to achieve, so I just decided to give it a crack.

“I wasn’t invited, but I just went out and put my name down and let them know who I was – I ended up training all through the pre-season and I was grateful to actually make the team that year.”

Alleer has been with Central ever since, and was even shaping up as a potential senior player in his draft year back in 2019 before a serious ankle break put his plans on hold.

“I had a really good preseason after 2018 heading into 2019, and I remember I played two reserve trial matches, and then got called up to play a league trial game against Sturt,” he said.

“The way it turned out, we had a lot of older guys coming back from injuries around the start of the year, so I ended up playing with the under- 18s and in around round five was when I did my ankle.

“It was originally meant to be a six-month injury, but we had complications and I ended up with a stress fracture in my foot, so it ended up being about 13 or 14 months before I could really do anything again.

“It was infuriating because I just couldn’t get my body right, and as a young kid it was hard to wrap my head around it.”

Alleer’s draft year passed by without getting a serious look from AFL teams because of his extended stint on the sidelines. Despite the injury, by the time he was fully healed and ready for the preseason to begin at the end of 2020, the 19-year-old, 196cm super-athlete was ready to turn heads.

After some trial games, Alleer was approached about moving out of the forward line – where he had spent almost his entire playing career – and use his athleticism down back. “It wasn’t until the first couple of trial games that I realised that my body was in a position where I could actually perform and be knocking on the door for a debut,” he said.

“I got the opportunity to play in a trial against Norwood, and our list at the moment has a lot of forwards, so (coach Paul Thomas) told me ‘look, we like you, and we’re going to try a new role out’ – and I fell in love with it pretty quick.

“Unfortunately I had a few niggles at the start of the season in my groin, which was scary at first, but it didn’t turn out to be a real issue – I came back into the side to play a reserves game in round six and I was lucky enough to make my league debut the next week.”

While his high-flying marks are sure to make the highlight reels, Alleer believed it was his drive that caught the eye of his coaches, and might be something that could continue to see him reach new heights.

“I think they saw my hunger,” he said. “Obviously my ability to jump and fly at the ball and compete in the air is something that’s stood out throughout my football journey, and it’s something I pride myself on and am grateful for – but the fact that this club has seen me have all these injuries, and how I stayed consistent, worked hard and kept my head down was probably something that stood out to them.

“I’ve been on the senior list for a couple of year now but I never really had the opportunity to showcase what I can do in a game of football, even at the reserves level, so I think once I got that chance in the preseason to prove how I can perform with the mature bodies it really impressed some people.

“I’m just focusing on playing good football now, but I’ve definitely always had aspirations to play AFL football – there’s been situations with injuries and stuff like that where I’ve had to adjust what my ideal goal is, but my motivation has never changed towards playing at the highest level.”