World Footy News

One of the great benefits of being at a footy carnival such as the National Diversity Championships in Townsville is just how close to the action and the people you can get. Routinely chatting to some of the biggest movers and shakers in the AFL – both past and present – adds an at times surreal feel to being in elite company.

From my own point of view, the chance to travel around with the Queensland squad of Kickstart and All Nations players was a lot of fun and also enlightening. From being on the bench with them at close quarters during matches to relaxing at dinner later in the evening, my experience has been memorable.

Match day, and Queensland All Nations coach, Anda Tyalana allows me to sit (quietly) at the back of the coaches box. It is a great experience to listen to the coaches talk on the run about what is unfolding in front of them.

“Be on the defensive side at ball ups and stoppages to stop their run.”

By and large, junior and youth football carnivals do not get the airplay or associated press that goes with the higher level national leagues. That is probably fair in the sense that there are only so many resources available for so many carnivals.

But the value of these carnivals is enormous, as anyone associated with them can tell you. With so many people across so many spheres of football involved it would be no surprise that these carnivals mean different things to different people.

The current National Diversity Championships in Townsville are a great example. From coaches to players, umpires, administrators, media representatives and a host of other employees and volunteers, meanings are as varied as the people who make the carnival happen.

The Kickstart and All Nations Cups move into their finals series today in Townsville. After three days of round robin matches where each side played each other once, the teams now have the chance to move through to tomorrow’s grand finals by winning their semi-finals and later preliminary finals today.

Once again the Western Australia Kickstart team has excelled across the tournament. Having won all five championships since this format began, the boys from the west a geared again to retain their title once again. Whilst many teams have held them for a half, the highly drilled, committed and enormously talented Sandgropers have found the extra gears to pull away and remain undefeated. The Northern Territory team has also been impressive, as have the Victoria/Tasmania and South Australia teams. The fact that all teams have snagged a win along the way says much for the national spread of talent.

Recently there has been a turnover of staff at national level in Canada and I talked to AFL Canada's new president and continuing Calgary Kangaroos president Lachlan Griffiths.  
 

It may seem an obvious statement but football needs people. Not just players, coaches, staff and helpers but people who bring their particular expertise into the football environment. The person who can ring around and find an available sporting facility at a reasonable price is a valuable asset.

Lachlan is an accountant and has endeavoured to set the league and the clubs on a sound financial footing. He has studied various institutions, not just football entities to extract inspiration for the right financial model.

 

Canada is getting serious about investing in it's representive teams. Both men and women players across Canada have been invited to participate in provincial teams to compete for national places.

 

Today I talked to Tristan Waldock's successor in Jason Arnold and his wife Danah in Calgary at the spacous grounds of the Sir Winston Churchill Centre.

Jason and his colleagues were running the first outing of an Alberta women's provincial team consisting of players coming from the Edmonton Emus and Calgary Kookaburras. Later a team will be selected to play against other provincial teams to provide players for two national sides.

Edmonton has "city of champions" as their tag line because of the number of athletes emanating from their city, the most notable being ice hockey player Wayne Gretzky. In some ways it's a lot like another sports mad city in Melbourne, with it's inhabitants supporting it's high profile sporting teams with fervor and just like Melbourne it has a fierce rivalry with a neighbouring city in Calgary.

It's just not men who are responsible for this reputation as there are many female athletes historically and presently in the mix. The founder of the first Australian Football club in Edmonton, Tristan Waldock for the Edmonton Emus is proud to point out that it's the women who first established the presence of Australian Football in Edmonton and it's the men who then followed. That may be an unique occurrence in Australian football history. That strong female sporting presence in Alberta probably goes a long way to explain the high representation from Western Canada in the the Canadian women's team.

The 2016 AFL season rolls into Round 3 Friday night in Melbourne with Port Adelaide hosting Essendon at Adelaide Oval. 

There a two significant events this week in the International Broadcasts.  The first is the start of coverage in the US on the Fox Sports 1 channel taking one AFL match live each week.  Fox Sports 1 is available to approximately 73% of US homes which dramatically increases the chances of Americans either deliberately or accidentally viewing our game compared to the Fox Sports 2 and Fox Soccer Plus channels.  The first match on Fox Sports 1 will be the Western Australian Derby clash between the West Coast Eagles and Fremantle.

The second is the broadcast by China Central Television of the Port Adelaide match against Essendon on Friday night. 中国中央电视台体育频道 or CCTV5 is the main sports broadcaster for the Peoples Republic of China and shows sport 24/7. While the exact size of the potential viewership is not known, there is the potential for this to be the most viewed Australian football match ever.  Time will tell. 

If you want to know when you can see the footy on TV in your part of the world, check out the schedule below. As always schedules are subject to change at the discretion of the local broadcaster so please check local guides for updates.

GAME	DATE	TIMESLOT	MATCH	VENUE	STATE	LOCAL TIME	GMT	NETWORK
1	8/04/2016	Night	Port Adelaide vs. Essendon	Adelaide Oval	SA	19:20	09:50	SEVEN
2	9/04/2016	Day	St Kilda vs. Collingwood	MCG	VIC	13:45	03:45	SEVEN
3	9/04/2016	Day	Richmond vs. Adelaide Crows	Etihad Stadium	VIC	14:10	04:10	FOX
4	9/04/2016	Twilight	Sydney Swans vs. GWS GIANTS	SCG	NSW	16:35	06:35	FOX
5	9/04/2016	Night	Gold Coast SUNS vs. Carlton	Metricon Stadium	QLD	19:25	09:25	SEVEN
6	9/04/2016	Night	West Coast Eagles vs. Fremantle	Domain Stadium	WA	17:40	09:40	FOX
7	10/04/2016	Early	North Melbourne vs. Melbourne	Blundstone Arena	TAS	13:10	03:10	FOX
8	10/04/2016	Day	Western Bulldogs vs. Hawthorn	Etihad Stadium	VIC	15:20	05:20	SEVEN
9	10/04/2016	Twilight	Geelong Cats vs. Brisbane Lions	Simonds Stadium	VIC	16:40	06:40	FOX

 

Neville Stibbard has made a long career out of talent scouting. The current Western Bulldogs recruiter also had 16 years with the North Melbourne Kangaroos during their glory era of the 1990’s as well as working to put together the initial playing lists for the Gold Coast Suns and the Greater Wester Sydney Giants in the years before they hit the field as the AFL’s 17th and 18th clubs.

His years of experience put him in the ideal position to assess talent from across the nation. He is also a guru for young talent to tap into as they develop their skills on and off the field to improve as footballers and young men in the community.

In Townsville for the current national Diversity Championships, Neville is spending his time watching the best indigenous and multicultural talent from across Australia.

The opening day of competition got under way today at the U15 Kickstart and All Nations Cup with last year’s title holders in each competition getting off to impressive starts. Western Australia has won the Kickstart title for the past five years, and began today winning both of their matches. The reigning All Nations winners Queensland also had the perfect start winning both of their opening matches played today.

On a beautiful day in Townsville the cream of Under 15 indigenous and multicultural talent took to the fields for their respective teams. The crowds were treated to some of the most scintillating football imaginable as players displayed a combination of team discipline and outrageous individual skills.

Adam Davis, the AFL National Umpiring Development Manager, proudly watches over his crop of umpires officiating at the National Diversity Championships in Townsville. Not only are these umpires representative of the six national teams competing at the carnival (Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory, the combined Victoria/Tasmania team and the combined New South Wales/ACT team), they are also from diverse backgrounds themselves.

This diversity echoes the push that Adam and his umpiring team are chasing as their current recruiting program gathers steam.

In the last 12 months there has been a 15% increase in umpire registrations. As the game grows with more women’s footy, multicultural carnivals and other growth areas, umpiring numbers have to grow with that rather than fall backwards and further behind what is needed.