Taken from Collingwood Website
Clinton Bown - exclusive collingwoodfc.com.au

Young Irish Gaelic football star, Martin Clarke, has signed with the Collingwood Football Club as its first ever International Rookie.

The promising youngster has recently returned to Ireland after spending five weeks in Melbourne at the Lexus Centre, where he trained with the Collingwood squad, as well as receiving specialist skills training in the Collingwood Youth Academy, with Academy director, Alan Richardson.

It is widely acknowledged that the 18-year-old Clarke, is one of most promising Irish youngsters in Gaelic football, winning recognition in his home country as the driving force behind his St Louis Kilkeel team reaching the MacRory Cup final over the past two seasons, and playing a key role in Down's All-Ireland minor triumph last year.

Clarke will join Collingwood in early in October, when he with enter the Collingwood Youth Academy on a more permanent basis, where, under the watchful eye of Richardson, he will continue his development and AFL skill acquisition.

Richardson was impressed by Clarke’s capacity to take on new skills in his recent stay in Australia, and the former Collingwood defender is looking forward to working with the young Irish talent day-in, day-out, as the Gaelic star begins his transition to a promising AFL star of the future.

“Martin was very impressive. The speed at which he has been able to pick up the skills of our game, and the speed of our game, and the technical facets of each skill.  “He has a thumping kick. He can already kick the footy over 50 metres, and for a guy who is not overly powerfully built and not a huge body mass, that’s pretty impressive. We’re pretty happy with that and don’t need to add to that too much, But what that shows us is that he is going to be a player who plays with penetration. ‘A’ because he can run and ‘B’ because he is going to get it there pretty quickly.”

Clarke’s progress has been closely observed by Collingwood Recruiting Manager, Derek Hine, who has followed the Gaelic stars development for over two years. Hine was responsible for bringing Clarke out to Australia for an initial familiarisation visit earlier this year, and was equally delighted that Clarke has decided to move to Australia to sign with the Collingwood Football Club.

“The exciting thing for us is, given Martin’s Gaelic background, and his anticipated development, both physically and in a football sense – the sky is the limit,” Hine told collingwoodfc.com.au. “That coupled with his desire, work ethic and professionalism all bodes well for the future.”

“The Club have been really impressed with the speed that he has been able to pick things up. He’s a really intelligent young man, from a great family. His capacity to learn and his physical capabilities give him an enormous chance of developing to play at the elite level.

“If you look at the example of Colm Begley, who came into the system from Ireland with the Brisbane Lions last October – he debuted last weekend against West Coast at senior level.”

Hine identified Clarke as the stand-out talent at the MacRory Cup over 2 years ago, and has tracked the youngster since, seeing him develop with promise. Then, at an invite only training camp in 2005 in Limerick, Ireland, Clarke was again the stand-out athlete on show.

Hine believes Clarke has what it takes to develop in to a promising player for the future, with vision and endurance, and a natural thirst for competition.

“Martin’s endurance is already up around the best of any player at the club. Even with his limited training in Ireland. That along with his evasive speed gives him a real opportunity to run through the middle of the ground.

“One thing that you can’t teach is vision and game sense in contested situations and he is very good in those areas.

“He is the best player in Ireland.”