World Footy News

As already discussed on WFN, Samoa will not compete at this year’s International Cup. This is obviously hugely disappointing to the international football community, let alone the Samoans themselves after being a stalwart of international competition in the South Pacific since the Arafura Festivals in Darwin.

Behind their withdrawal lie a number of factors. These include most significantly the fact that the Samoans have not been able to develop any enduring local competition, that the AYAD Officer (Australian Youth Ambassadors for Development) who have previously done a lot of the on-ground development (Michael Roberts who is now at the Dandenong Stingrays in the TAC Cup) has not been replaced and therefore due to the lack of organisation funding streams could not be put in place, particularly given the massive tsunami that devastated the country in 2009.

Another key factor has been that since 2008 stricter eligibility requirements have been in place from the AFL so that Samoans from Melbourne, who had strengthened the squad in the past despite having not met the eligibility criteria, are no longer given dispensation to compete.

WFN spoke recently with Ben Woodland, who with his father Bernie, has been supporting the Samoans since 2002 with their football. He feels that the appointment of an AYAD Officer is imperative for the future of AFL in Samoa and that this has now been addressed with Gabel Stathis being appointed to the role arriving in Samoa this month. His appointment gained the blessing of AFL Oceania Manager Andrew Cadzow who, as part of his role, oversees the development of the game throughout the Pacific.

Ben also said that juniors have been the focus in Samoa with talent identification camps rather than any form of organised competition supplying the players who have taken part at the Oceania U16 Cup and to the South Pacific side for the Australian U16 Championships. Uaea Laki of AFL Samoa supported this by saying that “AFL in Samoa over the last 15 years have been only borrowing rugby union and rugby league athletes to fill teams for whatever AFL tournaments there were. Straight away when the AFL selected athletes come back on island they are back the very next day at their rugby union or rugby league club playing”. This is not sustainable for the sport and AFL Samoa have chosen for the first time to address this.

The challenge of course for AFL Samoa, as it has been for all international countries, is to make AFL the sport of choice for talented athletes. That said, a vibrant local competition can still be established in conjunction with the other sports by not going head to head with them- either through running a different season or on a different day as happens in areas such as NSW’s Riverina when players often play footy and one of the rugby codes with one on a Saturday and the other on a Sunday. Talented athlete identification programmes can be run concurrently with such a local competition as no doubt is occurring in countries such as PNG and NZ.

Laki added that establishing the structure to allow this to happen was of the utmost importance with the registration of AFL Samoa with the Registrar of Companies. The sport has been recognized by the Oceanis Academy of Sports (OAS) of Samoa. AFL Samoa Treasurer Mark Burns and Gabel Stathis will work with the Board of the OAS, who have collective experience of 400 years of international competition, to develop “opportunities and pathways available to those in the sport here in Samoa”. Laki added that a key goal is that, through the work of Stathis, AFL Samoa would develop “AFL ONLY for U15 and in the rural areas where we (OAS) are well established and well networked for the next 2 years. We believe strongly that this will create AFL CULTURE and in 2 years time we can start off with a wide player base of skilled AFL athletes."

Ben Woodland said that there had been plenty of moments when the work done over the previous years had achieved spectacular success with “a particular highlight regarding the 2009 Oceania Cup in Fiji being that after two weeks of training we got within a goal of beating a NZ team that had been training together for a significantly longer period. We also managed to beat the eventual champions Tonga in the round robin section of the tournament”.

Samoa has had other reps at the Oceania U16’s in 2010 with 7 players able to go at the last minute with passports and finances making this in itself a real challenge. Currently the Samoans have two very talented players in the Sth Pacific U18 squad preparing for the Australian U16 Championships.

In a nation blessed with fantastic athletic attributes as can clearly be seen by the numbers with Samoan heritage who excel at rugby league and union let alone the breathtaking qualities of North Melbourne’s Aaron Edwards it is hoped that Samoan football can build from the ground up to bring the spine tingling Siva tau (war challenge) back to the International Cup.