This is a week Hisham Kerbatieh will never forget.
It was a week made possible by Richmond defender Bachar Houli, who wanted the 17-year-old to experience the demands of AFL football.
Kerbatieh is a beneficiary of the Bachar Houli academy, a high performance football talent camp for emerging junior players aged 14-17 years, who are from an Islamic background.
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He emerged from the most recent program in September with the inaugural Bachar Houli Academy medal, an award bestowed upon the participant who most embodies the values which underpin the program.
Kerbatieh's reward, upon Houli's request to Richmond officials, was to give him a sense of the rigours of AFL football, by involving him in a week of pre-season training at the ME Bank Centre.
"I thought it would be a great opportunity. I spoke to Blair (Hartley) and Dan (Richardson) about the opportunity of potentially getting him involved for a week, and they were quite happy to accept that," Houli told Roar Vision.
“It’s just giving the young kid an opportunity – a taste of what it takes to be the best, at the highest level.
“He was obviously in for the shock of his life, but he’s accepted it really well, and he’s worked really hard.
WATCH: The Bachar Houli Academy in action
Kerbatieh, a talented player who kicked 22 goals for the Calder Cannons in 2014, in 14 appearances, was blown away by the opportunity to rub shoulders with his idols, in particular Houli.
“It’s a massive honour. You spend the week with all the big names (like) Trent Cotchin and Ivan Maric.
“Bachar is someone I look up to. Just watching him – sometimes him speaking to one of his team-mates, just looking at the way he speaks, he’s very respectful.
“And the way he goes about training in the gym – he just doesn’t rest at all."
Houli's academy program was recently given a funding boost to expand into Western Sydney, a mark of the impact it has had on aspiring young Muslim footballers.
He hopes Kerbatieh is the first in a long line of his program's graduates to briefly experience life as a Richmond player.
“I’d love to continue this great initiative. I want to talk to the Club more in depth about it," he said.
“Hopefully part of the Bachar Houli medallist that we award, there’s a scholarship of getting involved at Richmond for a week, similar to what Hisham is going through at the moment.
“Giving them a taste of AFL footy, and the training standards.”
