World Footy News

Colm Begley and John Heslin talk to Irish radio Newstalk about the homesickness and the early return home of Irish international rookies recruited to the AFL. 

This discussion is quite timely, just last week Irishman Daniel Flynn who was recruited by the Port Adelaide Football Club had flown back home to be with his family as his grandfather battles a serious illness.

Daniel, who joined the club as a rookie in November 2013, has taken a leave of absence and there is speculation that he may not return to the club at all. 

Shane Savage speaks with the new International Scholarship signing at St Kilda.

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The following article was written by Libby Toovey for AFL South Africa detailing her recent trip to the nation to assist in the development of Australian Rules football umpiring. This represents another bold and positive initiative for the game in South Africa and will go a long way towards ensuring that the greatest platform needed for a football match – umpires – become more and more available to ensure the future growth of the game.

In December last year I spent two awesome weeks with the lovely guys at AFL South Africa. This was in fact the second time that I’d had the pleasure of working with Phindi, July and all the others, where in October 2012 I spent a week helping the umpires during their National Championships. As an umpire in Melbourne, I’ve been exposed to a lot of umpiring coaching, training and AFL football, so I believe I have a lot to offer all the umpires and players in South Africa. That’s why I decided to come back and further impart my knowledge onto these AFL lovers that are hungry to know more and gain more experience of the game.

Since the first instalment in 2003 of the biennial Papua New Guinea Games by the PNG Sports Foundation - teams representing each of the 20 Provinces have competed in a multisport program similar to the Pacific Games - and this did not include Australian Football. However that is about to change as AFL PNG reported today.

"For the first time since the commencement of the PNG Games, AFL PNG will be participating in this year's PNG Games thanks to the Host Organising Committee - Lae."

The PNG Sports Foundation describes the growth of the event : The Games themselves have now proved their success and have generated their own momentum, as each edition of the Games attracts more participants, more sponsorship, and importantly, more political support both at the National level and from Provincial leaders. Also underpinning that growth has been significant development of the Games Charter and the Host Agreement to ensure clear roles and responsibilities, to ensure sport development objectives are supported, and to ensure sport-for-development opportunities are also exploited.

AFL PNG are calling for the provincial associations to take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity and join the event. AFL PNG can be contacted for more info on 3254943 or e-mail seniorfootball@afl-png.com or info@afl-png.com.

Wanderers defeated Waratah Saturday night at TIO Stadium in Darwin to book a place in the 2013/14 grand-final against the raging hot favourites, St Mary’s.

The grand-final that was most likely for most of the season came about through a solid if unspectacular win to the Wanderers in the preliminary final, downing the ‘Tahs by 42 points with a score of 11 11 77 to 4 11 35.

For Wanderers it means the chance to challenge for their “lucky” thirteenth premiership since their formation in 1917. This is almost in contrast to the St Mary’s behemoth which will be aiming for back to back flags and their thirtieth flag since their inception in 1952, which would give then an almost phenomenal rate of close to one flag every two years over their 62 year history.

Some of us, like me, are frustrated that we cannot do enough for the development of Australian Football. Well, here's the chance to do something incredibly simple.
 

We were all excited by the Renee Tong story where she (eventually) won $10,000 to enable her to contest the 2014 AFL International Cup to be played this August in Melbourne. 

Now, we have Aussie X with a chance to win $50,000 to run their sports programs in Southern Toronto. Aussie X came to prominence when they won backing in the TV program "The Dragon's Den".

Since then they have brought Australian Rules Football, cricket and netball to Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and London. Aussie X were instrumental in establishing junior footy in Toronto. Now they have a chance to do the same in Southern Toronto. There is more information at this link.  All you have to do is "Like" their video.

 
 

The third and final part of our survey into Development Techniques.


Do you see benefit in developing stronger links with Australian clubs

Part two of our survey into Development Techniques.

Established youth football

Thanks to the Williamstown Football Club for the following story.

The Williamstown Football Club is pleased to appoint Jiaming (Jamie) Pi as the club’s Multicultural Advisor. Jamie will be working closely with the club towards the lead up to our Multicultural Community Day on Sunday 13th April and when the club hosts the China National Team at the International Cup in August this year.
 
Jiaming (Jamie) Pi is leading the pack with diversity in footy. Jamie first came to Australia as a 13 year old with his parents from the far North Western corner of China. After falling in love with the game of Aussie Rules in  the school yard, Jamie used our great game to learn English and settle into Australia.

Earlier this year we launched a survey into techniques used by leagues around the world to try to grow the game, see World Footy Development Techniques Survey.  The results are now in.

The answers for the multiple choice questions are presented in pie chart form. What we can extract is that there is no easy short cut to success however it would be interesting to detail the instances where clubs had achieved effective outcomes where most clubs hadn’t.

Word of mouth via players, friends or colleagues

The door is ajar of New Zealand's Kurt Heatherley to make the next step at Hawthorn. Heatherley has been selected to play in Hawthorn's third pre season match against Melbourne at Casey Fields this Saturday. On the back of a solid debut and showing up high profile Sudanese born Majak Daw from North Melbourne in his second match, his third outing could be the performance that leads him to be upgraded from the rookie list (where he is listed as an International Rookie) to the senior list.

Due to Brendan Whitecross being placed on the long term injury list this week there is a spot open. And Heatherley is in contention alongside Derik Wanganeen to be given that spot with both youngsters playing this Saturday.