World Footy News

The North Queensland city of Mackay is ready for their inaugural AFL NAB Challenge match with a sell-out crowd predicted to watch the Brisbane Lions take on St Kilda. The game will be played at the Harrup Park Country Club. General Manager of Harrup Park, Michael Jones, is quoted on the AFL Mackay website as saying “this is the first AFL NAB Challenge match for the region and there is real buzz and excitement around it.”

Mackay scored the game after northern neighbour, Townsville, had hosted NAB Challenge games featuring the Brisbane Lions, Gold Coast Suns, North Melbourne and Geelong in recent years. Combined with the regular AFL premiership matches in Cairns of recent seasons, Townsville had been a source of big league AFL matches for North Queenslanders. This year Mackay takes over the role and has the entire city excited.

(Picture: St Kilda's David Armitage, formerly from Mackay - St Kilda FC)

Week 3 of the 2016 NAB Challenge starts tomorrow night when the West Coast Eagles take on the Gold Coast SUNS at HBF Arena in Joondalup, Western Australia.

This week sees regional and suburban football grounds host pre-season matches for the last time before the fourth and final week of the 2016 NAB Challenge sees matches staged at metropolitan venues to maximise team preparations ahead of the Toyota AFL Premiership Season.

The first of the 2016 Women’s Exhibition Series matches will occur on Sunday March 6 at Highgate Recreation Reserve in Craigieburn when the Western Bulldogs play Melbourne at 5:10pm EDT. The match will be broadcast live on Crocmedia via www.afl.com.au and is a non-ticketed event, meaning fans can stay in the venue following the NAB Challenge match or gain FREE entry at the conclusion of that match.

Some of the international rookies or players of international origin on AFL team lists took to the field again over the weekend as the NAB Challenge matches continued. Once again there was a mixture of early excitement, breakout games and missed opportunities.

Perhaps the biggest mover was Collingwood’s Mason Cox who played his best game for the Magpies in their clash with Geelong. In what might yet be a breakout performance for the American recruit, Cox amassed seven quality possessions which yielded two goals as well as four marks, most of which were solid contested grabs. The performance has many people suggesting that Cox could well line up in Round One for the ‘Pies.

The Carlton/Essendon game saw a show of Irish talent across both teams. Zach Tuohy was amongst Carlton’s best, picking up a cool 18 possessions off half back and driving his team inside the forward 50 on many occasions. His Irish teammate, Ciaran Byrne, was also heavily involved across his limited game time with a handy nine possessions, but possibly more valuable was his constant defensive pressure whenever near the ball.

The Lyon based ALFA Lions in the French CNFA competition have taken a step towards leaving the cellar and avoiding this year’s wooden spoon. In the process they have made the battle for the wooden spoon just as exciting as the battles for finals spots.

Their weekend victory over the Strasbourg Kangourous might yet be a valuable result as the Lions still have winnable games between now and the end of the home and away draw.

The final score saw the ALFA Lions 120 defeat the Strasbourg Kangourous 73.

There are four rounds remaining, but with the nature of the draw the teams still locked in the battle for the wooden spoon have different amounts of games left.

Anyone believing that the Nightcliff Tigers’ great form leading up to the finals would come unstuck as they simply made up the numbers was shocked on Saturday when they downed the Darwin Buffaloes in the NTFL Elimination Final.

The Tigers won four of their last five home and away games to finish with a wet sail. But many felt that the Darwin Buffaloes’ time had come after some years in a football wilderness and their progression deeper into the finals would come at the expense of Nightcliff.

The 2016 AFL Asia season got underway in Yangon City, Myanmar.

After a hard fought game with scores tied at half time the visiting Jakarta Bintangs out lasted the hosts the Myanmar Fighting Cocks by a score of 63-53 yesterday in the inaugural Cocks Plate Contest, held on the “Hen House” pitch at Star City.

Despite a raucous crowd chanting tai kyet – or “Fighting cocks!” – for most of the game, the home team faltered in the fourth quarter, giving way in their own end to allow three goals in the last 15 minutes.

The Jakarta team started fast and scored in the opening minute after Myanmar’s All-Asia ruckman Conor Smith was outjumped by a much smaller, local Indonesian player. But the Cocks battled back with two goals from the ageless wonder Julian Clark, whose sticky hands enabled him to mark two kicks. At halftime, the sides were level, 5-3-33 to 5-3-33.

The following is a snippet from the AFL Japan website.

AFL Scholarship Player Shoki Mukotaka from Senshu Powers Club flew from Narita Airport on 25th February to Melbourne to practice and train with Box Hill North Football Club. He will 'live' and train at the club for three weeks until 18th March.

The scholarship program also has the players homestay with members of the club so as to experience life in Australia.

"In Australia stay is homestay in the house of team-mate, has become a program that also experience life in Australia."

The AFL Japan Scholarship has run for a number of years now and several Samurai players previously participated in the Scholarship.

Genki Tanaka being one such scholarship holder who spent a season in Melbourne playing at Box Hill North also studying English and acquiring AFL qualifications and accreditations in coaching and umpiring.

Sohei Yoshida also spent five weeks at Box Hill North prior to the 2014 International Cup.

Cairns, in Far North Queensland, has long been a source of AFL footballers that made the journey south to play the game at the highest level. But with today’s signing by the Essendon Football Club of Cairns product, Sam Michael, the connection has reached a new level.

Rarely have two Cairns based players donned the same colours. The Gold Coast Suns have seen Lewis Moss, Rex Liddy and Jarrod Harbrow wear their colours in 2011 when Harbrow joined the club, but soon after both Liddy and Moss were delisted, so the Cairns link faltered.

Other players from Cairns have graced AFL club lists in recent times with players such as Charlie Dixon (Port Adelaide) still playing, Peter Yagmoor (Collingwood) having reached the highest level before being delisted and there are plenty more waiting in the wings for their big chance.

With the final home and away match now completed in the AFL Middle East competition for the 2015/16 season, attention will now turn to the Grand Final, to be players at Seven’s Stadium in Dubai on March on Friday 11th March.

The final match saw the Abu Dhabi Falcons host the Dubai Dragons. The Falcons’ remote finals chances had been ended last round, so the game was about pride and building for next season. For the Dragons it was a chance to tune up ready for their premiership tilt in two weeks’ time.

The Dragons had little trouble in downing a game Falcon’s outfit, eventually running out winners by 51 points. The final score saw the Dubai Dragons 18 8 116 defeat the Abu Dhabi Falcons 9 11 65.

Callum Twomey from the www.afl.com.au website reports that the AFL has reviewed many of its regulations surrounding the recruitment of players from across America. In light of the continued positive progress of players like Jason Holmes at St Kilda, Mason Cox at Collingwood and others such as Matt Korchek and Alex Aurrachio who are looking to advance further this year, the AFL may have seen even greater opportunities for clubs to sign American talent.

 

MORE American athletes could enter the AFL system after the League lifted its upper age limit on international scholarship holders.

 

 

Under past rules, clubs have only been able to sign international athletes to scholarships under the age of 22, which has been a restriction particularly for recruiters scouting the US for talent.

A huge performance by Collingwood’s American forward, Mason Cox, has Magpie fans salivating and commentators speculating that he should be a certainty to line up in the team’s Round One match. His NAB Challenge performance against Geelong tonight saw him with seven possessions, four marks, including two excellent contested marks, and topped off with two goals.

What the statistics don’t tell you is how much of an absolute menace Cox was in the Collingwood forward Line. His ability to bust open packs with big leaps led directly to two more goals, and his hulking 211cm and 110kg frame put shivers through the cats’ defence. Even more impressive was that Cox spent much of the game matched up against premiership Cat, Harry Taylor.