Sydney coach Paul Roos already rates the AFL's Karmichael Hunt coup as a success and he expects the next expansion team to try something similar.

While Roos does not think Hunt's defection from the NRL to the AFL will become a regular problem for rugby league, the Swans coach said it was an outstanding marketing exercise.

Hunt will be at Gold Coast when they become the AFL's 17th club and a team based in western Sydney will then be the 18th.

"If you look at the impact it's had in terms of the publicity point of the view over the past (24) hours, it's a great blueprint to announce your footy club," Roos said.

"It's taken the imagination of all Australian sports followers and all newspapers all over Australia.

"From a marketing point of view it's an extremely good strategy, it's very hard to buy that.

"Certainly whoever's going to run the west Sydney franchise, they'd have to be looking at it from that point of view."

Roos said that whatever Gold Coast will pay Hunt, they have probably recouped half that money over the last day with the massive interest the signing has attracted.

But he added it was a unique scenario and said a league player who had no Australian Rules experience would struggle to make the switch.

Hunt played Australian Rules as a junior in Queensland.

Swans experiment Mike Pyke is a Canadian who comes from rugby union, but Roos said it was a different situation because Pyke is playing as a ruckman and is much lower-profile than Hunt.

Swans player Craig Bolton has little doubt that Hunt will succeed in the switch of codes.

"His speed is exceptional, you can just watch him play and he busts through the lines and he looks to be a tremendous athlete in that regard," Bolton said.

"He's probably not a bloke you really want tackling you either so I think he's going to hit a few guys pretty hard."

Brought to you by AAP © 2024 AAP