World Footy News

The AFL Players association is celebrating the AFL multicultural round. A great initiative they have released on their site is the "2017 Multicultural Map" which shows all the 149 AFL and AFLW current players that were either born outside Australia or have one parent born outside Australia.

From Austria to Zimbabwe, there are 38 countries represented on the 2017 Multicultural Map — the third of its kind.

Players highlighted in green were born outside Australia, while those in red have a parent born in another country. Therefore, some players may be listed against more than one country.

You can check it out here.

The AFL has released details of updated venue and changed match times.  These affect the matches in Round 2, the Schools Round and Round 3 the Community Round.

The NZ vs Fiji match will be played at St Kilda's home training base, Linen Park in Seaford.  St Kilda have an ongoing relationship with AFLNZ.

The India vs Pakistan match has been confirmed to be played at Golden Square (in Bendigo) on the Friday evening 11th of August at 7pm.

Please see the updated fixtures below.

 

With the completion of the AFLG season in Germany, the Berlin Crocodiles have set themselves a new record – their first undefeated season since their inception as a club back in 2001. Their last start victory against fellow finals aspirants, the Hamburg Dockers, underlined how dominant their season has been as they thumped the previously second-placed Dockers by 126 points in Hamburg.

For the time being players from all clubs will return to local leagues to play as the national team – the German Eagles – travels to Australia for the IC17 (International Cup). Crocodiles will spend time playing in the local Berlin League to stay ready for the finals series from 26th August after the return of the national team.

Men’s Footy in Great Britain

The game has seen a steady increase in activity since the last tournament and expanded markedly in central England and Scotland. The quality of the game has increased, with more youngsters getting involved and staying with the game, many of whom travel into London to get increased exposure to the full 18’s game, as well as the 9’s they play regularly with their regional clubs.

The number of British eligible players across clubs has improved dramatically with numerous clubs now having strength in depth of their “rest of world” players, which local league rules stipulate must be in match day squads. The mix of high-level Australian players and talented British rookies has created one of the strongest leagues outside of Australia and bought those rookies up to speed and a good level of play quickly.

South Africa's Lions have been in camp preparing for IC17. Check out this great news story from CGTN Africa.

Interchanger is the game management App currently used by more than 400 teams around Australia.  Interchanger are providing software for 11 of the 18 AFL clubs in 2017. 

The creator and owner of Interchanger Murray Bird has offered the App free (including the stats feature) to all of the International Cup teams to manage their team and stats during the tournament. 

Additionally Murray has offered to meet team coaches prior to the event to run them through functionality of the App.

The Manchester Mozzies and Nottingham Scorpions have once again made it through to the 2017 AFLCNE Grand Final to be played next weekend. But whilst the Mozzies downed the Rams and the Scorpions defeated the Wolverines to reach the final weekend of the season proper, the Merseyside Saints almost upstaged everyone with their win over the Sheffield Thunder.

The Saints haven’t won many matches since their introduction to the AFLCNE roster. They have endured some fearful hidings as part of their learning curve. Yet that is what makes their win on the weekend so important and so sweet. By downing the Thunder in the semi-final of the Plate they can now challenge the Tyne Tees Tigers next weekend for a chance at some real silverware for their display case. The final score of Saints 17 5 107 to Thunder 7 7 49 was a great reward for belief and perseverance for the club and they can go into next weekend’s Plate final as a genuine outside chance to win.

Northwind look to improve ranking (again)

“Canada's Northwind are currently ranked 9th for IC14 and could potentially finish higher depending how they fair against the stronger teams in their pool.” That was the introduction for the 2014 International Cup and it is unchanged for IC17 (Ed. in the WFN Rankings).

“Canada has always been competitive against it’s Southern neighbour in the U.S.A. despite having half the number of players.” This comment from the previous preview also stands true with Canada only once beating the U.S.A. men in 2007 since the commencement of the 49th Parallel Cup tournament in 1999.

The champion Australian Rules football team in South America has been decided and the Bogota Bulldogs have managed to retain the Andes Cup and go back to back in their battle against the Santiago Saints from Chile. But the battle wasn’t all one way as the Saints pushed a wasteful Bulldogs all the way, going down by just 17 points in front of their home crowd.

The final score saw the Bogota Bulldogs 9 15 69 defeat the Santiago Saints 8 4 52.

For the Bulldogs the win cements them as the very real permanent team in South America to accompany the years of hard work put in place by the Santiago Saints crew in Chile. Whilst the Saints would no doubt be disappointed to lose, the game against the team from Colombia marks a huge leap forward for Chilean football as the local club now has a genuine international competitor. That will, in time, lead to greater opportunities in all spheres of the game on and off the field.

Jordan Roughead, Liam Picken and Lachie Hunter were three of the younger and less experienced players at the Western Bulldogs back in 2014. On their first visit to Cairns for the annual match against the Gold Coast Suns at Cazalys Stadium, the three were sent down to Gordonvale – 25 kilometres south of Cairns – to meet with the kids at the Pyramid Power club. After a kicking session and a frenetic handpassing match with the locals, the three returned to their hotels.

Returning in 2017 the three are now premiership players and three of the first picked in a strong, talented Bulldogs team. Today in Cairns they all helped the Bulldogs to down the Gold Coast Suns by 54 points and keep their finals hopes on track.

Yesterday, Jordan opened up about his personal love of Cairns and that of his Western Bulldogs team mates.

“We love being up in Cairns as a playing group and as a club.”