World Footy News

Meet the players - Sam Pitman (Great Britain).

Meet the players - Steven Maguire (Great Britain).

Steven has been featured with the Round 2 goal of the day - somewhat ironically as a likely simple goal suddenly made more difficult.

Meet the players - Josese Natadra (Fiji).

Meet the players - Laure Kwoka (USA (Liberty)).

Laure kicked the USA Liberty's first goal of the tournament on Saturday afternoon against the Irish Banshees at Plenty in outer northern Melbourne. Marking in front within the last minute of play - she went back and slotted the goal despite half a dozen opponents trying to put her off.

Meet the players - Jeffery Pauli (Fiji).

Big appreciation to Manningham Footy Club. Y.W.A.M. (Youth with a mission - Surrey Hills) Melbourne and the Fijian & Melbourne Community

With the completion of Women's Round 5 the schedule for the playoff matches on Friday have been updated to include the Women's games.

The Men's Grand Final Ireland versus Papua New Guinea will take place at 4.50pm at the MCG on Saturday (prior to Geelong vs Hawthorn), following on from the Women's Grand Final played at Punt Road from 2:10pm, Canada Northern Lights versus Ireland.

The Men's top 4 were split off and played their semi-final (PNG defeating New Zealand, Ireland defeating South Africa).

The Men's 5th to 12th formed Division 1 and have now played their 4th match each, giving the ladder below.  They now play off for final positions.

The Men's 13th to 18th formed Division 2 and have also played their 4th match each, but in their final round will play a pre-determined match each as per the amended schedule (as per worldfootynews.com suggestion) to ensure no repeated match-ups and a mix of opposition).  Their final position will be determined by their aggregate ladder (the table below plus the final round of results).

The Women have completed Round 5 (an odd number of teams and byes resulting in 4 games each over those 5 rounds).  They now play off for their final positions.

Wednesday 20th 10.00

Canada certainly has produced a lot of depth in women’s football and the result is a style of play that is closer to men’s football than women’s

Canada started the day with their ruck supremecy pushing the ball into attack and that was the pattern for the whole day apart from some centre square infringements. The Lights use teamwork  as an integral part of their play. It’s impossible to note all the instances of good play but only to mention a few highlights because in the first quarter the Storm were completely surprised by the  Northern Lights use of the ball. #10 Aimee Legault was just starting to warm up on the wing  giving options and a lot of drive.

The Storm were stunned as she marked and immediately played on , sometimes fending off, always looking to run and deliver to a lead or have a shot. This immediate play on style is what the coached had asked for. #8 Sylvie De Brabandere presented options marking uncontested in the square to kick a goal and thenkick  another from a free kick. #33 Kendra Heil trapped a kick-in and added to the score. #11 Kirsten Bodashefsky took a good mark 35m out, ran around her opponent and slotted the ball through for another major, typical of the style of play that the Northern Lights were aiming for. It was total domination by the Northern Lights, only slowed down when the ball was trapped in scrimmages.

An overcast Melbourne day set the scene for Finland vs India, one of the matches to close Round 4 of the International Cup. Both sides were aiming to make amends for three successive defeats; Finland suffering losses to USA, Sweden and China. India going down to Tonga, PNG and Pakistan.

China and Japan are both Confucian societies with respect for tradition, even though this fact is often deliberately forgotten by leaders with other imperatives or can’t be seen for the material goods of today.

But we now have a new tradition of Australian Football. It’s getting stronger, particularly in Tokyo, Osaka and Komazawa in Japan and in Guangzhou and Beijing in China. Perhaps a 21st century Confucius might declare that footy is the main thing.