tIt is a cruel ritual involving Australian bettors, which occur in the intense summer heat of Louisiana, near homes and swamps of crocodiles and poisonous cotton snakes. It previously featured Australian rules football players, competing for $3 million NFL Contract with the Saints of New Orleans.
This year’s showdown began with Matt Hayball, former Geelong Cat and current Saints bettor James Burnip, a 198cm rookie in Mount Macedonia, Victoria, who just wrapped up a great number of times at the University of Alabama. The Saints complicated the battle this week by signing a third bettor American Kai Kroeger.
On August 26, NFL teams had to cut their training camp members from 90 players to 53. Winners will enjoy the spotlight and wealth of America’s most popular sports leagues, while losers will lose their jobs, and the long-standing hope is that 31 other NFL teams may need to play potterters.
“It’s the nature of the NFL,” Hayball told Australia in a lively Saints locker room inside the Oxner Sports Performance Center in New Orleans. “You’ve been fighting for your position, and it’s the same for every other player in this building.”
This is not Hayball’s first showdown. Last year, he was a rookie and eliminated the current bettor Lou Hedley of Western Australians and Saints. Hedley was a rookie the year before and expelled current American bettor Blake Gillikin.
In recent years, no NFL team has preferred Australian bettors than the Saints. They earned their own mobility, toughness and versatile kicking skills, honed by years of two-foot-starting Sherrin. Special Team Coordinator Phil Galiano even saw him calling him the “Australian flash” at the first fall of 11 yards.
Despite the cruel bets, Hayball and Burnip kept their easy friendships.
“There’s only one bettor at the end of the camp, but it’s friendly,” Bernip said. “We still wake up and have coffee together, eat, and go practice. We’re trying to make each other better.”
“James is very talented and a good guy,” Hayball said. “It’s similar to what happened last year with Lou. We learn from each other when competing. But, in reality, we’re competing with ourselves.”
Hayball and Burnip is a graduate of Melbourne-based Pound College Prokick Australia, which has sent hundreds of former Australian Rules football players to play with American universities.
“When I first started, Matt left Prokick to the United States,” Bernip said. “Whenever he returned to Australia, we kept in touch.”
Like many of them before them, they saw their AFL dreams disappear. Hayball grew up in Adelaide, serving as a midfielder for the U18 with the West Adelaide Football Club and was selected by Geelong in 2015. However, after playing for the Cats for three years in the second-tier VFL, he was eliminated. He joined Prokick, received a fight scholarship at Atlantic University in Florida, and later transferred to Vanderbilt University in Tennessee.
Burnip played teenage footsteps in the Riddell Regional Football League, but he pivoted when it became clear that the AFL wasn’t in his future. “I found Proquick and the rest is history,” he said.
Burnip landed in Alabama, a major U.S. college football powerhouse, won the starting job under legendary coach Nick Saban and became a bettor on the trend for four seasons – although Saban often calls him a “football player.”
When Hayball entered Saints Camp as an incumbent and beat his opponent’s 20-yard line with flats last season, recent history favored rookies. The Saints have chosen rookie bettors in their last three training camp duels.
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Hayball is the second year of a three-year, $2.84 million contract, so it has earned nearly $1 million in currency. Burnip quickly signed a $297,500 free agent deal with the Saints without signing in the NFL draft in April. But there is only a guarantee of $35,000, and that will all remain if cut later this month.
Kroeger is also a rookie, and his NFL career is short and turbulent. He played a little bit at the University of South Carolina over the past four years, and was not drafted in April, signed by the New York Jets, abandoned on July 27, and was picked up by the Saints four days later.
They all know very well what Saints head coach Kellen Moore and Galiano are looking for.
“It’s about consistency, hanging time, distance, direction, dropping the ball quickly and flipping the field,” Bernip said. “If you can do these things, you’ll have a very successful career.”
Hayball said he “every plunge is chasing perfection.”
“Last year, I did a great job of putting it in my 20s, but this year I hope to play more in 10 or five games. These can be a game changer.”
If Hayball wins the job and stays in New Orleans, he has a non-NFL goal: Explore Louisiana’s swamp on a crocodile sightseeing tour.
“I know [Saints kicker Blake] Grupe loves this kind of stuff, so I might tag him next time. ”
When asked if the Americans would expect him to go all out, Steve Irwin jumped off the boat and wrestled the crocodile, he grinned. “No, I can’t see myself doing this. Even though our crocodile is much bigger in Australia, I still don’t want to share the water with them.”
Health & Wellness Contributor
A wellness enthusiast and certified nutrition advisor, Meera covers everything from healthy living tips to medical breakthroughs. Her articles aim to inform and inspire readers to live better every day.
