World Footy News

The Carlton Blues may be having their issues on and off the field recently. But on the weekend a shining light for the club was the debut of Irishman Ciaran Sheehan (who first trialled with Carlton in 2009)  for the club on Saturday against the Gold Coast.

The lad from County Cork had 8 kicks, 5 handballs, 5 marks and two tackles.  He also had two "goal assists" with some impressive delivery to Carltons forwards.

Video of Sheehan in action and interview after the game can be seen below. 

Meet the players - Jay Levesque (US Revolution).

Meet the players - Lindsay Kastanek (US Freedom).

Meet the players - Yoshi Harris (Nauru).

Meet the players - Julius Nicklasson (Sweden).

Meet the players - Hallie Lee (US Freedom).

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The sibling rivalry between the United States Revolution and Canada Northwind intensified at Royal Park, with a physical match between the teams never in doubt. As the clouds rolled in, so to did the tempers, but it was the Revos who would come away with the valuable win.

In a low scoring affair, the Revolution’s Ryan McGettigan kicked the first and only goal of the opening quarter. Both teams were trying to impose their presence on the match, but the Americans clearly had the competitive edge with the Northwind only able to respond with a behind. Tempers spilled over and a Canadian was yellow-carded, resulting in his absence for ten minutes, and the Canadians having to play a man down. The United States led Canada 1.0 (6) to 0.1 (1) at the first break.

Steven Matshane is the Community Development Officer for AFL Footywild, based in Potchefstroom, South Africa. But his current job is being part of the South Africa Lions at this year’s International Cup. Steven has had a long relationship with the game, shared with us in this story.

“I discovered Aussie Rules footy in 2002 when I was 14 years old. I was recruited from my school by our teacher who was involved in AFL footy, Mr Mokotedi. At that time Aussie Rules was only played in the Northwest Province in three communities: Itsoseng, Ramatlabama and Mafikeng where I come from.”

Matching Papua New Guinea, a genuine contender to take out this year’s tournament, against India, recovering from a 166 point loss, was always going to produce a certain result; it was just a question of the margin.

Who will grab fourth spot and go through to the semi-finals of the 2014 AFL International Cup?  It's almost impossible to call.

First up, who will the other 3 be?  Our understanding of the AFL's rules for IC14 are that the top team in each pool at the end of Round 3 will go through.  As you can see on the ladders (Ladders after Round 2) there's six nations still in contention.  Ireland and Nauru, PNG and South Africa, New Zealand and USA are all on 2 wins 0 losses.  Each pair are drawn to play each other in Round 3 (Community Round).  This doesn't seem likely to be a coincidence.  Unless there's a draw there will be one team sitting on top of each pool on 3 wins 0 losses.  They go through.

If the matches go on historical form that means Ireland, New Zealand and PNG.

Then the pools are combined to determine 4th spot - the last semi-final position.  We've crunched some numbers and come up with some fascinating possibilites, with Nauru, South Africa and the USA all obvious candidates, but Tonga, Fiji, Canada and Great Britain all in with big chances too.  That's even tighter than the AFL's run to this year's finals.