Domestic footy up and running in NZ
- Thursday, September 25 2014 @ 11:29 am ACST
- Contributed by: Rod Shaw
- Views: 2,528
Both the Auckland and Canterbury Leagues are well advanced in their seasons whilst the Wellington league will commence the first weekend in October for a short 6 game regular season before a Grand Final in early December.
The Canterbury League sees all 4 teams with a win after Round 4 with both the Eastern Blues and Christchurch Bulldogs on 3 wins each. For more see http://www.cafl.co.nz
The Auckland League after three rounds sees Waitakere Magpies undefeated, one game clear of North Shore Tigers, University Blues and Mt Roskill Saints, Both Pakuranga Panthers and Manurewa Raiders are winless rounding out the competition. For more see http://www.aafl.co.nz
From information gained at http://www.aflnz.co.nz it seems both Waikato and Otago are having organised kick-arounds this year. Whether this eventuates into any modified organised competition remains to be seen.
All centres will be having functions to celebrate the AFL Grand Final this weekend. The Wellington League will be having a “Have a Go” session at the Poneke Clubrooms beforehand for those interested.
The NZ Leagues continue to not show any great signs of advancement in numerical terms despite the great work being done with the juniors. This was picked up in a recent article which can be read here. Hopefully through the efforts of the committed the great work done with juniors will translate into deeper competitions which were evident just over a decade ago.
Perhaps this will be the year where numbers demand that Reserves competitions resume in the major centres for 2015?