World Footy News

Mason Cox will remain a Magpie after signing a three-year contract extension with the club which brought him from the United States to Australia.

The 211cm American first began honing his AFL skills at Collingwood as a Category B international rookie in 2014 playing in the VFL.

Since, the Dallas native has played 20 AFL games – including nine as a key forward and ruckman in 2017.

Speculation in recent weeks around his contract had seen him linked to Hawthorn, Richmond and Brisbane as possible destinations for the American.

The third round of the Australian Rules Football Russian Championship for 2017 took place on 2nd September at the Moscow State University stadium. This round, called the Concrete & Steel Cup, was played in fine conditions in front of a modest but committed crowd. The Cats won the day and have now set up their chance to take the AFL Russia title for 2017.

The final scores saw the Cats lead at every change against the home team before holding on to a five-goal victory – 81 to 51. Our Cat reporter in St.Petersburg, Alexey Andryushin, sent his report about the day and its ramifications.

The inaugural NAB AFL Women’s State of Origin match will be played at Etihad Stadium tonight.

Entry to the match is FREE of charge.  It will be streamed here (we assume worldwide).

The AFL and Etihad Stadium have announced a heavily reduced parking fee for the event – a flat rate of $10.

The NAB AFL Women’s State of Origin match will be broadcast live nationally on the Seven Network and FOXTEL/FOX FOOTY.

worldfootynews.com has been publishing unofficial Men's World Rankings since 2006 and has been using a consistent methodology since 2010.  In establishing that methodology we consulted with our readership and that influenced the final decision.

Although some informal updates were published during IC17 our last formal edition was in late 2016 and we're due to issue a post-IC17 update, but find ourselves confronted by some difficult decision regarding which teams qualify.

It has been suggested that a match involving Canada B could be included, as well as games by the hybrid sides Indochina and Asia Lions.  There's also a match between the USA and Canada way back in 1993 that has been suggested as needing to go into our statistics. In the spirit of the 2010 debate, we're seeking feedback from our readers as to their thoughts.

The Port Moresby senior competition in Port Moresby is resuming this weekend.  The season did stall after Round 8 due to the high number of IC representatives coming out of the competition and also because of the situation surrounding the extended PNG elections that dragged out and caused security concerns in the nation's capital.

With their hometown heroes returning with the International Cup and the election issues now being cleared the season is ready to push through to the end and see some great footy played. The Lamana Dockers are leaders in both the Seniors and Reserves men's competition, while the Gerehu Magpies lead in the women's competition (and have the bye this week). 

See the full draw below for Round 9 and the current ladders.
 

The AFL has released the twenty-first intake into Level One of the NAB AFL Academy.  Of World Footy interest is the inclusion of 15 year old  Hewago "Ace" Paul Oea. 

Ace comes to the Academy via PNG's participation in the AFL Queensland development pathway and first came to prominence when he starred in Queensland's U16 team at the recent National carnival.  As well as winning the best on ground medal in the recent International Cup grand final, he has recently also been playing senior football for Broadbeach in the AFLQ competition. 

The 22 players will receive a NAB AFL Academy scholarship and under the guidance of AFL National Academy Head Coach Luke Power, will come together for accelerated AFL football and personal development camps to be held in Australia and overseas over the next 12 months.

This intake was selected from the NAB AFL Under-16 Championships which recently concluded in Queensland with players aspiring towards the 2019 NAB AFL Draft.

The fabulous Finals final Friday is one of the best days of IC footy - evenly matched teams playing for rankings - but there is also slowly building atmosphere is levity as the games reach their conclusions - the last on field gatherings - hugging opponents and in many cases IC friends that there is no guarantee will be seen in 3 years time. That mood bubbles over a few hours later - as the evening lights up at the AFL International Cup Gala night at the Palladium Room at Crown.

For many participating players - such an evening is a million miles from their normal. It's still largely invisible in the AFL world. The Adelaide Crows were hosting the Sydney Swans - meanwhile few in attendance at Crown were perusing their phones to check on scores - there's too much going on. There was irony the following Monday - when, senior AFL Executive (and currently footy ops fill in) Andrew Dillon was quizzed on SEN radio about happenings at Adelaide Oval on the Friday night - he didn't admit that he was at the IC17 Gala night.

We had some great photos of the action from across the 2017 AFL International Cup, courtesy of our many contributing writers - and thankyou to you all.  A large collection of those pictures can be viewed on our Flickr page here.

We were also lucky enough to have access to professional photos by Stephen Skok.  You can view his full IC17 gallery here or see a selection of images from the three Grand Finals below.

Many of our photos from the non-Grand Final Round 5 matches are collected below too.

With the recent success of a new wave of Irish recruits into the AFL system, what major Gaelic football prospects are on the horizon for a code switch to Aussie rules? This year would seem to be a ripe time for such recruits, with the continuing success of AFL players from Gaelic backgrounds, such as Geelong’s Zach Tuohy, Hawthorn’s Conor Glass, and Essendon’s Conor McKenna.

Additionally, the International Rules Series will be held in Australia once again this year, and the Ireland Warriors recently placed third at the 2017 International Cup. Jim Stynes (RIP) and Tadhg Kennelly might not be winning AFL premierships anymore, but it’s safe to say that the Irish experiment is alive and well in footy.

GB Swans captain Laura Turner shares her thoughts in review of the IC17 tournament

And that's a wrap! IC17 is over and true to form it culminated in two nail biting finals which both went down to the wire. PNG survived late surges from New Zealand to win by one point at the MCG and later at Etihad Arena the Irish Banshees swarmed the ball in the dying minutes to stop Canada from capitalising on their late possession inside the forward 50.

You might be concerned that with the women's finals showcasing the same teams as in 2014 that the tournament had been a predictable affair. Quite the contrary, as the landscape of Australian Football outside its homeland is shifting and this is most prominent within the women's tournament.

Nearing half time in the early game on Ransford oval on Friday - South Africa had controlled general play but only had a 2 goal lead to show for it. Kicking to what appeared to be the scoring end - ruckman Malibongwe Mlamli was trying to be everywhere. In the absence of rucking partner Usenzile Gotyana who was injured the week before in Geelong - Mlamli was rotating forward with the much shorter Aubrey Velele giving him a 'chop out' in the ruck.

Why in the Battle of Opposites Papua New Guinea Mosquitoes defeated New Zealand Hawks

PNG 4.5 (29) NZ 4.4 (28)

A Cup of Mosquito Euphoria

Why did the Mosquitoes win?