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.

At the Coburg Football Club VFL Grand Final Breakfast this morning we had the chance to ask Box Hill Hawks coach Marco Bello about his thoughts on the development of the two New Zealanders in his team and what part they might play in Sunday’s Grand Final against Williamstown.

“Shem (Tatupu), he’s come a long way. He played the first half of the season in the development league. He’s only been playing the game for four or five years. He was still learning the caper. It’s a new ball game for him, but his development not only this year but in the four years he has been trying out for us has been exponential.”
 

 

The Calgary Kangaroos club has now grown to three senior mens teams to form a competition and produce a premier.. Established in 2002, the club has had to travel to Edmonton, Kelowna or Vancouver at times for competition. There is also a women's team and a flourishing junior program. (See Valley Creek School article)

The name “Kangaroos” is now reserved for the  representative side to compete in inter-provincial and international tournaments. Locally, the Bears, Cowboys and Wolves compete for the Calgary Men’s Championship which is the old style premiership table. They also have one very enthusiastic mayor as the Roos number ticket holder.

The following is from Lachlan Griffiths about the championship game day.

 

 

With the Södermalm Blues taking the chocolates in the SAFF Grand Final in Stockholm, Sweden, they broke a long-running losing streak on the big days and made their own history. The following article comes straight from the “newsdesk” of the Blues, basking in the glory of their premiership win.

 

The following article by Rob “Haiku Bob” Scott from the Södermalm club, and the pictures, come courtesy of one very proud Swedish football club.

 

 

Nothing lasts these days. Jobs, marriages, Prime Ministerships. Big on promises, short on delivery. About the only thing you could count on these days is Södermalm losing the Grand Final. They have lost the last four. Four years running. Four years is a long time in anything. Especially being Prime Minister.

Back in the 1980’s the Australian cricket team announced a new face with “Taylor” appearing on the list and the world assuming it was the debut of future test captain, Mark Taylor. But everyone was shocked when it was in fact rank outsider, off-spinner Peter Taylor, named for his debut instead. A case of mistaken cricketers.

In Denmark over the weekend the predicted victory of a Copenhagen team into the 2015 Grand Final occurred. In the upset of the season to date, however, it was the Copenhagen Giants that held on for a pulsating one point victory over raging hot favourites, the Copenhagen Barracudas. Like the analogy of the Taylors, the unexpected Copenhagen team is through to the big dance.

The Barracudas started the game steadily, though aware of a big challenge being mounted by the Giants. Quarter time saw the favourites on track with a six point lead (15 to 9) and by half-time that lead has edged out to ten points (31-21). Many expected that from here the Barracudas would flex the muscle shown all year and pull away in the second half.

The Toulouse Hawks have got their new season off to a positive start with victory in the French Cup (Coupe De France) over the weekend. After missing out on the 2014/15 season Grand Final earlier this year, the Hawks have reset their compass for the new season and this first up win is very handy for their preparation.

The tournament was held in Toulouse and contested by six French teams: the Hawks, Bordeaux Bombers, AFLA Lions, Cergy-Pontoise Coyotes, Perpignan Tigers and a combined Paris Cockerels/Firesharks Montpellier team, bringing last year’s Grand Finalists together as one.

Toulouse went through their four matches undefeated on the day in a resounding result and a pre-emptive message to the rest of the competition for the rest of the season. But they were not the only team to take great heart from the day. The fast-improving AFLA Lions from Lyon, unlucky to miss last year’s CNFA finals, won two of their matches on the day, as did the Perpignan Tigers who took a win from the day.

The Northern Territory’s own NEAFL team, the NT Thunder, qualified for this year’s Grand Final last weekend setting up a home event against the Aspley Hornets to decide the NEAFL premiership for 2015. Territorians have spent the week preparing TIO Stadium in Darwin ready for the match, aware that it will be a national showcase for the venue.

The Thunder enjoyed a strong season, finishing second on the home and away ladder behind the UWS Giants. Last weekend they won their Preliminary Final against Sydney University by 70 points to reach the big day. This will be the third time in a Grand Final for the Thunder after having won the inaugural NEAFL flag in 2011 by defeating Brisbane club Morningside, then being beaten in the 2012 final by the Brisbane Lions.

Their opponent, the Aspley Hornets, have been perennial finalists also. Last year they won the flag by defeating the Sydney Swans by just two points. In 2013 they went down to the Brisbane Lions. Both the Hornets and the Thunder have been regular finalists since 2011.

The second week of the 2015 Finals series kicks off in Melbourne Friday night with Hawthorn hosting the Adelaide Crows in the Second Semi Final at the MCG.  Saturday night in Sydney the Swans host North Melbourne at Homebush Stadium. Once again viewers around the world can access matches live or delayed on a number of TV networks or stream the telecast via subscription to Watchafl.com.au. 

The broadcast schedule for this Finals Week 2 can be seen below.  .

 

The lifeblood of future Australian Rules football competitions world-wide is and will increasingly be the development of junior pathways. Ultimately, it will not be enough for the game to grow simply through ex-pat Australians overseas and local converts. To prosper, rather than stagnate or fall away, the leagues and clubs need the infusion of youth as its supply line.

Already there are increasing signs worldwide of Auskick clinics or similar growing across Europe, the USA, across Asia, Oceania and even in Chile, South America, across African countries and the Middle East. Almost everywhere the game is played junior programs of one sort or another are appearing to develop the next generation of players.

One more recent example has been the development of a junior program in Sweden at the Södermalm Blues club in suburban Stockholm. A recent chat with Jonas Raninen, Södermalm Vice President and Junior Team Manager, unearthed the background and logistics of their program, including potential for further growth and a vision for the future.

It is just possible that Australian Rules footy in Iceland saw our game in the most dramatically beautiful country on earth. With its amazing mix of sub-Arctic, volcanic, coastal, mountain and beautifully rural scenery combined with charming cities and people, our game was given an incredible backdrop.

But, sadly, beauty isn’t enough to sustain sport, especially a sport with a lower profile than others, and the game in Iceland is in a state of decline after having made significant steps in recent years. The reality of life is that people need to work to live and this fact impacts on all teams at some point. In a country like Iceland where the game was very fragile due to the “newness” of the game and relatively low numbers, a few personnel moves can mean the difference between maintaining the code or seeing it fall away.

In chatting recently to Sölvi Sigmarsson, General manager of AFL Iceland and one of the driving forces behind the creation of the Akureyri in the north of the country, near the Arctic Circle (see story – Footy Beneath the Arctic Circle – Akureyri, Iceland) he is honest in his appraisal of the game in Iceland.

Tijs Lejeune is a Year 12 student in Canberra. For his English subject he was asked to write a paper which reflected his area of sporting or community interest – in this case his desire to learn more about the multicultural and international aspects of Australian Rules football - recognise a challenge faced by the code in its growth and look at possible solutions.

 

Tijs’ use of the metaphor of the extinct Dodo on Mauritius is a powerful metaphor for the negative growth of our game if suitable care is not taken. Whilst Tijs expresses some views which are not necessarily endorsed by World Footy News or the broader AFL, it is a very interesting take on a possible future of our great game.

 

 

I don’t want to sound all doom and gloom, but I look at how the dodo became extinct and worryingly I see some similarities with the AFL. Factors like: undisturbed for so long on the island of Mauritius, no natural predators for so long, restricted to a small inhabitable area and the inability to escape when danger confronted it.