World Footy News

The Australian Indigenous youth squad to tour South Africa has been announced. The tour follows on from the February 2006 tour and a reciprocal visit last season. The team features some well-known surnames and will play the South African youth side as a curtain-raiser to carlton versus Fremantle in Pretoria. In an article on the AFL website, the target of 25000 South African players by 2009 is re-stated.

The full article is Boomerangs take flight to South Africa. The tour schedule includes:

January 31: Conducting football clinics in Alexandra (outside Johannesburg).
February 1: Soweto tour including Nelson Mandela’s House and the Regina Mundi Church.
February 2: Match against South African Buffaloes in Pretoria (curtain-raiser).
February 3-4: Hluhluwe National Park.
February 6: Match against South African Buffaloes in Kwa Mashu.
February 7: Overnight stay in a Zulu Village.
February 8: Conducting football clinics in Nyanga (outside Cape Town).
February 9: Match against South African Buffaloes in Khayelitsha.
February 10: Table Mountain and Robben Island.

The Aborignal squad is:

WA: Alliston Pickett, Johnson Taylor, Hayden Collard
NSW: Djali Bloomfield, Thomas Kickett, Anthony Taylor
NT: Steven May, Ashley Lansen, Curtly Hampton, Anthony Hale, Stanley Turner
Qld: Thomas Holland, Anzack Newman, Kieran Johnson, Peter Yagmoor, Rex Liddy
Vic: Tyrone Bean, Brandon Edwards, Richard Bamblett, Dylan Somerville
SA: Joshua Wittwer, Timothy Milera, Nathan Ahmat-Watkins, Jarrad Brusnahad
Tas: Daniel Cox

The South African team will have a core group of players plus a rotating group of new talent from each region they play a match in.

You can read more about some of the Australian players from the Northern Territory in South Africa to get some Aussie rules - the Africans will face some classy opposition.