World Footy News

The Auckland AFL Premiership is soon to be decided with the race down to four - University Blues, Mt Roskill Saints, Waitakere Magpies and North Shore Tigers. The AAFL Season has been one dominated percentage-wise by the University Club, winning 8 games from 10, who surprisingly only finished a game clear of Mt Roskill and Waitakere. North Shore Tigers scraped in with a 50% win/loss ratio, but with NZ Coach and NZAFL CEO Rob Vanstam as their coach their chances cannot be dismissed. Certainly Uni are going in in top form with key forwards Todd Taverna and Thomas Taungakiavia kicking 36 goals between them in their last two wins.

The Reserves comp also enters the finals with University Blues again the stand-out team. Joining them in the finals this year are Waitakere Magpies, Takapuna Eagles and North Shore Tigers.

In the first week of the finals University will play Mt Roskill for the right to go straight into the Grand Final whilst Waitakere will confront North Shore to see who will remain in the race for the Flag.

WFN asked the finals-bound Clubs to discuss their seasons, their key players and those of the opposition who had impressed them. This is what they had to say…

Waitakere

Season so far: This has been one of our best seasons in the last couple of years, particularly at home, where we have been undefeated. We are into the finals in both grades now, with our Reserve side coming along in leaps and bounds, to finish with a 119 point drubbing of the Tigers. Overall this season has been a success, player retention is something we still have trouble with. We are aiming for a top 2 finish, anything else would be a bit disappointing. This season has also seen a number if injuries to some key players, which has been a real problem.

Key Senior Magpies: Matt Hacket, John Maling, Joel Hodgkinson, David Rattenbury, Andrew Rattenbury, Fraser Worthington.

Opposition to watch: North Shore - Nick Cuneen, Grant Conway, Mike Halliday; Mt Roskill - Marcus Jones, Morgan Jones, Mike Tagg; University - We'll need to shut Taverna and Taungakiavia down in front of goal, and Matt Duffie in half forward, as he's a real up and comer.

Finishing Thought: Come on the 'Pies, let's go one better than last year!!

Jarrod Darlington - Coach

Mt Roskill

Season so far: It has been a season of change for the Saints with a new coach and around three quarters of our senior squad retiring or moving on. We were able to compensate quite well however with Marcus Jones and Alex VanSon returning and a couple of handy new recruits in Henry Carracher and Matt Kemp. We started off with a great first up win, a couple of losses, then a couple of wins to be travelling pretty well at the half way mark. Season ending injuries to David Kay, Steve Fairweather, Rich Horsley and the unavailability of Jarrad Wallace and Aaron Napier (all 2005 premiership players) around round 5 threatened to derail the season however. The coach and senior group of players really rallied the troops and a band of new recruits really stepped up to the mark to go 4 wins and 1 loss in the second half of the season. We ended up finishing second, which at the mid point of the season looked unlikely. We are really looking forward to stepping up to the mark and measuring ourselves against the very experienced University line up this Sunday at Moutford Park.

Your Key Players: Lewis Hurst, Morgan Jones, Mike Tagg, Henry Carracher. All except Henry are NZ or Auckland reps who have shown great leadership throughout the year.

Players to watch in the opposition: University- Todd Taverna and Thomas Taungakiavia are both big targets up forward and who have doing the majority of their teams scoring this season. Uni are very strong all over the field, therefore so we really need to be mindful of all of their players.

Finishing Thought: Previous results would seem to indicate Uni are again the team to beat with virtually nothing separating ourselves, The Tigers and Magpies. Even though we are huge underdogs this Sunday we will be going all out for a win to avoid a very tough preliminary final against either Nth Shore or Waitak. History suggests the team losing the major semi final struggles to win the preliminary final so we are very keen to avoid that scenario.

Greg Cairns - President

University Blues

Season so far:-The home and away games have finished and the University club has come out as minor premiers in both Senior and Reserve grades. This is a testament to the club’s numbers and their ability to field two quality teams with very little overlap. The two teams sport a combination of talented youngsters and experienced veterans who are looking to take the club to title in both grades for the second year running.

The season started in the worst way possible for the defending premiers. With limited numbers an under-strength side was given a lesson in desire and commitment, resulting in our first ever loss to Waitakere in Senior grade. The Blues bounced back to win the next two games and were in control of the game against Takapuna before having the score wiped for having too many players on the field after coming out of the third quarter break with a full 18 when a man was still in the sin-bin. This proved a wake-up call for the season as the team was lying near the bottom of the table and would have to win almost every game to try to gain a major semi-final placing.

Through a combination of increased effort on the training pitch, better footy smarts in games, and the return of injured or unavailable personnel, the Blues reeled off six straight wins to claim the top spot. Impressive scores of over 20 goals in 6 of the 10 games so far have resulted in the Blues scoring over 1000 points for the season.

The key for Unviersity has been a strong midfield providing quality ball to a devastating forward line. Teenager Matt Duffie has great hands and vertical leap, reads the game well and presents himself well at CHF. His efforts have earned him a spot in the NZ train-on squad. Ruckrover Andrew Buckthought is a hard ball getter, and has a knack of moving forward and stealing the odd goal. His partner in the middle, NZ rep Ben Horne, does plenty of cleaning up and is a strong tackler. Thomas Taungakava has played strongly at Full Forward. His great hands don’t let the midfield down and he has already kicked over 40 goals. Perhaps even better has been his fellow forward, Todd Taverna, who has collected big bags of goals, including twice getting eleven in a game. He has a personal tally of 56 for the season.

The Blues will be looking to play intelligent football in the pressure situation of Finals footy. They have a strong chance to repeat for 2007 if they play to the best of their ability.

Howard Gilbert- University Club.

Around the grounds in the rest of NZ...

Recently other senior competitions have finished in NZ - the Eastern Blues of Christchurch prevailed in a tooth-and-nail Canterbury AFL Grand Final against the University Cougars - final scores Blues 4.17.41 d Cougars 5.7.37.

The two-team Waikato League has also held their final and the Hamilton Tuis have prevailed over the Hamilton Mavericks by 2 points - 9.4.58 to 8.8.56. Though some might scoff at the idea of a two-team league, the facts are that this small competition has produced recent NZ Falcons and 8 members in the train- on squad for AFIC 2008. Obviously those who have been involved in local international leagues know the difficulties in getting enough key people who care- whether in administration, umpiring, coaching or Club committees. In my experience the easiest thing in the world is getting players - retaining them then becomes an issue and if you can get all the off-field issues right then that is so much simpler. The organizers behind the Hamilton competition based in the Waikato region appear to have been very wise growing it slowly and developing passion and commitment in an area of NZ that 3 years ago had no Aussie Rules.

The Wellington competition has just commenced and as they approached Round 3 the Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs were playing footy of very high quality whilst the Wellington City Saints and North City Demons had both registered wins. The Hutt Valley Eagles are currently winless but appear to be in much better shape this year and therefore achieving their coach’s aim of not forfeiting a game and building for the future.