West Perth in Australian First

West Perth Falcons Jared and James Brunmeier are the first American-born players to play football at State level in Australia.

James Brunmeier, 24, debuted for West Perth's reserves side on April 1, while brother Jared, 25, joined him a week later.

The Brunmeier's are from the Milwaukee Bombers, sent to West Perth under the Bombers/Falcons scholarship program.

Jared discovered AFL during a university semester in Melbourne and James spent a semester in Sydney where he also found a passion for the game. 

Jared and James started playing for Milwaukee Bombers in 2002/2003.

"Footy's so athletic, it's a combination of a whole lot of different sports; good team building sports and it's open to everyone pretty much everyone," Jared said. 

Jared and James had been planning to come back to Australia and play football competitively since August 2005.

"We decided we want to come back somewhere in Australia and see how far we can get with footy, just because Americans have never really tried it before," James said.

"I'd lived in Sydney and done a semester there, Jared's been to Melbourne and we were like: ‘Oh, where haven't we been?'...Perth was the one."

Jared said he was surprised at the level of skill required to get into a West Perth side. 

"It's way more competitive than anything we could have imagined in the States, because we were some of the best players in the States," he said.

"You expect to be pretty good but you get here and you're at the bottom of the barrel."

James said: "You don't stand out... but our skills have been improving. The club's fantastic. There are a lot of great guys and they're helping us by giving us pointers and footy-smarts."

Jared's favourite AFL player is Essendon's James Hird.

"He's so hard at it, he's a positive role model and the injuries he's been though... and he just keeps going," he said.

James said he enjoys how Barry Hall from the Sydney Swans plays the game.

"I don't think I could ever match up to him. He's such a big guy but he's always Mr teamwork. He's basically a force in the field," he said. 

Jared and James are writing a journal about playing with the West Perth Falcons on the USFooty website. 

- Emma Robins
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