World Footy News

The FAFL season came to an end on the 12th September with a Grand Final bringing down the curtain on a challenging year for Finnish footy. As stated through the FAFL Facebook page, “ This year’s Grand Final will see Helsinki Heatseekers (City) take on a combined Turku Dockers / Salo Juggernaughts / Vaasa Wombats (Country) to decide who deserves the right to be crowned Finnish Champions for 2015.”

As it turned out, the final ended up being a full Helsinki Heatseekers list playing a Turku Dockers team supplemented by some extra Helsinki players. Nevertheless, there could be little doubt that regardless of format the Helsinki Heatseekers were the best Finnish team of 2015.

The finale to the season was a departure from recent Grand Final formats with the theory of one dominant team playing a combination of the other Finnish teams for bragging rights. Throughout the season the Helsinki Heatseekers had won just about everything available to them. Probably the only “blemish”, if you could call it that was when they combined with the Vaasa Wombats in a match against the Turku Dockers and went down in the Finnish town of Paimio.
The Heatseekers also won the FAFL Cup back in July, going through the round robin matches against Turku, Vaasa and the Salo Juggernauts undefeated. Scores for the carnival were:

Qualifying matches:
Helsinki 3.2 6.4 (40) defeated Turku 3.4 3.5 (23)
Vaasa 1.1 4.2 (26) defeated Salo 2.3 3.5 (23)
Helsinki 3.1 4.1 (25) defeated Vaasa 0.2 1.3 (9)
Turku 5.4 7.6 (48) defeated Salo 1.1 3.3 (21)
Turku 4.3 5.5 (35) defeated Vaasa 0.1 3.4 (22)
Helsinki 8.4 10.4 (64) defeated Salo 2.0 4.1 (25)
Final
Helsinki 2.2 5.2 (34) defeated Turku 2.2 3.3 (21)

The season commenced with practice matches in early May with new players trying out for the first time. Whilst the season was at times impacted by available player numbers, the FAFL Cup still showcased encouraging growth with the FAFL stating that “it was especially great to see a lot of Helsinki's newer players taking on key roles in the team and enjoying the game.”

All of the Grand Final action was at Talin Urheilupuisto (on the rugby / gridiron field). The Helsinki Heatseekers certainly deserved favouritism after an undefeated year and a stability that has seen them remain consistent all season.

But it was a tough season for the FAFL, and particularly the other teams – Turdu, Vaasa and Salo – as dropping numbers of available players meant that regular fixture events were always under pressure, which gave the Helsinki Heatseekers a pronounced advantage all year based on numbers alone. The FAFL will be working hard over the off season to look at ways of rebuilding the competition for 2016, as will the clubs as they look to open new markets or re-establish existing player pools.

But for the time being it is the Helsinki Heatseekers that hold their first title since 2012 and can celebrate for a while before starting their own planning to defend the title in 2016.