World Footy News

The Sweden Elks are gearing up for their third International Cup this year, and although a number of withdrawals from the original list will see them travel with a relatively young squad, a number of familiar faces will be making the trip.

Sweden are hoping to push up the rankings a bit, having finished 12th and 11th in their previous two IC appearances.

National coach Daniel McClaer spoke with WFN about the team's preparations and goals.

The AFL Fiji Club Championships came to an end on a Warm sunny and cloudless day at Albert Park in Suva, Fiji with the Raiwaqa Giants taking out the AFL Fiji Club Championships 2014.

In a lopsided event, the Giants ran away with the game before half-time with a 19.14.128 to 8.11.59 thrashing of heavy favourites Nausori Cats.
In a thrilling and spectacular display of power footy at its tropical best, Bulldog Player of the Match was Juta Vateitei. Cats Player of the Match was Nathan Wesley and a special mention also goes to Finn Murphy for the Giants who took a few brilliant marks and kicked truly finishing the day with 7 goals.

With the Club championships now at a close, attention turns to the final preparations for the International Cup in Melbourne.

Fiji will be looking to jump up into Div 1 this year after winning division 2 in 2011.

Back in 2012 a photo surfaced on social media. It showed a young man wading into a creek to retrieve a footy. The caption read along the lines of “if you kick it in, you get it yourself”. It was a reference to the one and only football belonging to that club.

The club turned out to be the Raiwaqa Bulldogs, the youngest junior Australian Rules football team in Fiji. The photo cannot be found now, lost in the vacuum of social media feeds, but the club just won the 2014 AFL Fiji premiership. An incredible effort, given that less than two years ago their single football was their most valued possession.

The Fiji Times (online) ran a story detailing the events of grand final day:

Having settled into Vanuatu as a tropical island paradise - it's Saturday morning footy time. Normally for me this is Auskick in suburban Melbourne. This Saturday it's a tad bit different; Vanuatu; tropical humidity; land crab holes; and I'll be umpiring today.

This is the third instalment of a Vanuatu travel diary/footy pilgrimage. Part of the objective of this series is to highlight footy on our door step in a country that anyone can justify visiting along with their whole family, or club. In A footy holiday to Vanuatu - Part 1 - boots and footys my family and I arrived with a bit of extra baggage and in A footy holiday to Vanuatu - Part 2 - Kazza field and those pesky crab holes we made our way to Kazza field - spotting familiar goal posts in unfamiliar territory.

The following article by Jennifer Phelan for the AFL.com website details the decision by the Melbourne Demons to commit to an additional two years of playing games in the Northern Territory.

This is exciting news for Territorians just two days out from the final Northern Territory match for 2014 on Saturday between the Melbourne Demons and the Fremantle Dockers.

MELBOURNE'S commitment to the Northern Territory has been extended for at least another two years and four home-and-away games.

The Demons will play at least one game a year at Darwin’s TIO Stadium, with a second at either that venue or Alice Springs' Traeger Park, in 2015 and 2016.

It signals an extension of their existing agreement with the AFL, the Territory's government and AFLNT that has seen them play in the region for the past five years.

Their second game for this season is on Saturday night against Fremantle at TIO Stadium, after their round 11 clash with Port Adelaide at Traeger Park.

To read this article in full, read Dees top up Top End deal on the AFL website.

I am old enough to remember the excitement of the days when an arriving circus was the be-all-and-end-all of excitement. Galloping into our happy but somewhat predictable day to day lives, the travelling roadshows would light up our days. We would admire the elephants, lions, horses and monkeys. We would laugh at the clowns and goggle at the spectacle of the high wire acts. For that brief period in time we were enchanted and lived in another world not usually ours.

Today, at least in my mind, the arrival of an AFL match to my home city, Cairns, has much of that same magic. The big lumbering elephants will be replaced by Will Minson and Zac Smith. The roaring lions, kings of their domain, are replaced by Gary Ablett and Matthew Boyd. The old warhorses are replaced by Griffen, Cooney, Rischitelli and Harbrow and the exciting, agile monkeys are the excitement machines like Dalhaus, Bontempelli, Bennell and O’Meara.

Next week the circus comes to town (no disrespect to the Stardust Circus who is already here). The Gold Coast Suns, our adopted AFL team, takes on the Sons of the ‘Scray – the Western Bulldogs. A modern team created from next to nothing which in just three and a half years is looking a genuine finals prospect (Gold Coast) up against the working class heroes from the western Melbourne suburb of Footscray (Western Bulldogs).

And the “Big Top” is our own Cazaly’s Stadium – surely one of the finest venues in regional Australia. Surrounded by the majesty of the Great Dividing Range, and adjacent Murray Prior Range, Cazalys is an Australian Rules football oasis in a tropical wonderland.

The eyes of the AFL supporting world will be firmly fixed on two northern Australian cities – Darwin and Cairns – in coming weeks as the highest level of the game continues to reach out to audiences across Australia. Fans will be flocking into TIO Stadium in Darwin and Cazalys Stadium in Cairns as the Melbourne Demons, Fremantle Dockers, Gold Coast Suns and Western Bulldogs pack their bags and head north.

Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, will host its one and only premiership match for the season. With a capacity of 14,000, TIO Stadium is sure to have a huge crowd on deck for the game.

A few weeks back the Melbourne Demons hosted the Port Adelaide Power at TIO Traeger Park in Alice Springs (the same venue hosted an NAB Challenge between the Demons and the Geelong Cats in the pre-season). This time it is the relaxed, tropical city of Darwin that gets its chance to shine.

On Saturday 5th July, the Paul Roos coached Demons host last year’s grand finalists, the frugal Ross Lyon coached Fremantle Dockers. For Melbourne the game will be another step in their evolution under Roos from perennial cellar-dwellers into a defence minded team capable of upsetting better placed teams.

LEFT: Darwin's TIO Stadium

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Looks like North Melbourne's American recruit Eric "The Beast" Wallace is making progress in his first season of Aussie Rules, if this footage from the VFL is anything to judge by:

Wallace on instagram

For everyone keenly awaiting the final list of teams and match schedule for the 2014 AFL International Cup, we're pleased to report that the Men's competition draw is due to be released this Monday, 30th June.  The Women's draw is due out later in the week.

Our latest information suggests there could be 18 men's teams (but not confirmed):

Canada, China, Fiji, Finland, France, Great Britain, India, Indonesia, Ireland (defending champions), Japan, Nauru, New Zealand, Pakistan, PNG, South Africa, Sweden, Tonga, USA

And 5 countries represented in the Women's draw, but possibly with some countries fielding two sides:

Ireland (defending champions), Canada, USA, Tonga, Fiji

After months of speculation, the DAFL have officially confirmed that the Denmark Vikings national team will not be travelling to Australia for the 2014 International Cup. National team coach Páll Tómas Finnsson says that financial concerns meant that any side the Vikings could have sent would have been far from the best side possible.

"The decision was made in March as it became clear to us that we wouldn't be able to raise the necessary funds to cover our travel and accommodation costs. The estimated cost is 5,000 AUD per person, or a total of 160,000 AUD for a full team list of 28 players and four officials."

"Our players' football expenses have risen exponentially in the last few years. We participate in European tournaments such as the European Championships and the Euro Cup, and, in addition, many of our young talents have had the opportunity to represent their country in the European Legion's games against the AIS talent development squad and on the World XVIII Team."

"The absence of major sponsors means that these players, many of which are under 20 years old and still studying, have reached the maximum of what they can spend on the sport. We therefore had the choice of travelling to Australia with a limited squad or cancelling our participation. After careful consideration and with much regret, we decided on the latter."

The Vikings are one of Europe's oldest national sides, having competed regular against traditional rivals Great Britain and Sweden since the 1990s. They competed at the inaugural International Cup in 2002, where they finished 4th - their best result from any IC. They then withdraw from the 2005 edition, but returned in 2008 and 2011.