World Footy News

With Wednesdays’ AFL rookie draft the international focus of AFL clubs continues to expand.
The formalisation of American recruits Jason Holmes (StKilda) and Patrick Mitchell (Sydney) along with Irish pair Ciaran Sheehan and Ciaran Byrne (both to Carlton) and another Irish lad Daniel Flynn to Port are the more traditional speculative ‘code conversion’ pathways for international recruiting typified in the past by names such as Stynes, Wight, Kennelly, Pyke, Tuohy, and Wallace..
Of more interest to Australian Football pathways overseas are the pair of Kiwis in Kurt Heatherley and Shem Tatupu. Both from New Zealand and both have been developing as juniors and have participated in the junior pathways for both New Zealand and regionally for the South Pacific squad.
As it is – the first list lodgement occurred in late October and Hawthorn nominated the pair then so there was no real surprise today – however, it is the formalisation of the process and the next phase can begin and in most cases continue for all of these players.

See below for an overview of the 7 internationals.

The AFL today announced the locations for the 2013/2014 Australia Post AFL Community Camps, with Greater Western Sydney Giants to kick off the first camp in Canberra on December 2.

The Australia Post AFL Community Camps will see more than 800 AFL players take the game to regional and rural communities across Australia, as well as overseas again when St Kilda Football Club visits Wellington, New Zealand in February 2013. 

AFL General Manager People, Customer and Community Dorothy Hisgrove said fans of all ages across the country will have the chance to meet their AFL heroes, in the lead up to the 2014 Toyota AFL Premiership Season.

Earlier in 2013 World Footy News published a story about the fledgling Irish club, the UCC Bombers from Cork. Since that time, the Bombers have continued to develop and improve.  The culmination of this could be seen in their recent narrow loss to the Leeside Lions in a friendly match where they went down 12 5 77 to 10 8 68. But before that, the UCC Bombers had the honor of winning the inaugural Fitzpatrick Cup in Dublin to create a piece of their own history. Below is an account of the games.

UCC Aussie Rules club (UCC Bombers) recently entered the inaugural AFL Europe accredited Fitzpatrick Cup cup at Islandbridge, Dublin. The four competing clubs were Northern Regional College(NRC), University College Cork (UCC), Dublin City University (DCU) and the oldest AFL team outside Australia, Oxford University. UCC were drawn to play DCU in the opening preliminary final, with Oxford University going head to head with NRC in the other. Prior to ball-up AFL Commission Chairman, Mike Fitzpatrick, whom the tournament is named after, kicked off proceedings at the Opening Ceremony, recalling stories from his time spent at St John’s College and his association with the Oxford University football club. “I am very humbled that this great tournament is being held in my honour”, stated Fitzpatrick. “I look forward to seeing some potential AFL stars take the field today.” Also in attendance was AFL Europe Chairman, Chris Dow who addressed the special guests ahead of the knockout tournament. “This is an historic day for AFL in Europe and each participating club”, he said.

Jason Lassey of Bigfooty Media interviews the USAFL's new President Denis Ryan.

The 19 year old Kenyan born Sudanese youth drafted by the Sydney Swans last night may need to have a globe (or perhaps Google Earth) handy when he tells his grandchildren his life story. He was born in Kenya (1994) in a refugee camp after his family fled war ravaged Sudan.  The family came to Australia in 2003. 

We first heard of Aliir Aliir in 2010 when he was selected in the World XVIII team - he was living in Queensland and was identified as a talented footy youngster with a good leap and great skills.  He was regularly found on the lists of goal kickers and best players in junior footy for Apsley Hornets in Qld.

Unless you were watching closely you might wonder "What happened to Tommy Walsh this year?". In the following video the Sydney Swans website reviews the Irish import's season.

The Calgary Kangaroos have wrapped up their 2013 season almost snatching the US National championship title along the way (going down to the Austin Crows by one point).  The following video contains some captured highlights of their season.

Sean Hurley is on trial with the Fremantle Football Club and trying to win an International Rookie spot on the Docker's list for the 2014 season. He speaks of his first day of training in the Aussie sun.

Hurley attended the 2012 National Draft Combine in Melbourne.

Hawthorn and AFLNZ have again been running talent scouting camps in NZ continuing to grow on the work done in the past few years.

Checkout this highlights package from the Ottawa Swans 2013 season with the men's and women's teams in action.

The following story looks at the Australian Rules football scene in Russia. It has been given to World Footy news to reproduce as a way of highlighting the tremendous work by Roger Scott and his crew to build the game from scratch in a country not usually associated with the sport.

Roger Scott began learning Russian while still in Australia. He works in commercial real estate in Moscow, and on Sundays teaches all those interested how to play Australian football, a game little known in Russia.

Moscow. One of the first warm days in August. At a small stadium in Lefortovo park, there are two dozen immigrant workers from Central Asia playing football (soccer), and several more people playing frisbee on the edge of the field. At five in the afternoon they are replaced by strongly built guys, about eight of them, carrying an oval ball.

"Whenever you come here, somebody is always playing football (soccer): in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening. Were there more of us, we would have just occupied this field and that's it," one of them says with a slight accent. The playing field in Lefortovo is free, therefore clashes of certain "subcultures" are inevitable. 

The guy with an accent is called Roger Scott. "Like the rabbit," he says, when we are introduced. Roger is from Australia, but has been living in Russia for eight years already. 

He has a double-headed eagle tattooed on his right shoulder. "It helps in difficult situations with the police. Although I don't have to show it that often these days, Moscow has become more civilised," he says, with a faint nostalgia in his tone. 

The following article is courtesy of Zain Nabi.  It follows the first match by the squad being assembled in Melbourne to represent Pakistan at the 2014 International Cup.  This truly is a case of the first tentative steps towards international competition for a new footy nation. 

Lo and behold! Perfect kicks, meticulous interceptions, scintillating mark, commendable team work, and, of course, crowd support were the highlights of the game as Shaheens took on their first actual opponents, Just Play – a local football team, and defeated them 44-26 under the overcast conditions at Princes Park Carlton.

It was the first real test of the relentless training sessions that the players had been through during the past couple of months. The Shaheens carried their skills from the training on to the playing field to display what Coach Andrew termed ‘an outstanding performance’.

“It is fantastic to see them performing like that,” he said during the post-game interview. “Honestly, I had not expected to see such professional approach from the players, but they surprised me.”