World Footy News

The VAFA are two thirds of the way through their tour of Ireland playing three International Rules format matches. In their first match in County Cork they easily defeated Na Piarsaigh by 86 points and in the second match they went down by 18 points to the combined Dublin Universities team.

Later tonight local time they will play the All Ireland Gaelic football team in the final match of the tour in Cavan.

Results and match reports below.

The Zagreb Hawks have this year won the Croatian league for the first time since their foundation in 2006.

The 9-a-side league, featuring 3 Croatian clubs and the Downunder Dogs from Graz, Austria, has seen the Zagreb Hawks come runners-up on a number of occasions, but never clinch the big prize.

After reaching the low point of their history in 2012, struggling to field a full side and losing to the Velika Gorica Bombers (now the Dockers), Zaprude Giants and Downunder Dogs, this year was completely something different.

From October 2012, the Hawks undertook a rebuilding program and have since grown the largest playing numbers in the league. This included trading Milijan Mamić to the Dockers in return for Tomislav Cvetko - Knights captain and European Championship 2013 top scorer - and unearthing some young guns such as Josip Habljak, selected in the ruck for the All-European team from the 2013 European Championships.

Ireland have named a 29 man squad ahead of the upcoming International Rules Series Tests against Australia in Ireland. This squad is expected to be shortened to 23 closer to the first Test.

Among the named squad Australian football followers will recognise Carlton’s Zach Tuohy and former Brisbane/St Kilda player Colm Begley. Chrissy McKaigue played with the Sydney Swans reserves, and Michael Shields lasted half a season with the Carlton Football Club before deciding to go back to Ireland.

Others that had short stints in Australia are John Heslin at Richmond (he also played in the winning Irish team at IC11) and Ciaran Kilkenny who left Hawthorn before the season started this year.

Ciaran Byrne has signed with Carlton to be on the club’s list as an International Rookie in 2014.

The squad is as follows

St Kilda has secured the services of young Hawthorn midfielder Shane Savage plus the Hawks' first round selection (pick 17) in the 2013 NAB AFL National Draft in exchange for Saints ruckman Ben McEvoy.

Savage played 15 of Hawthorn’s 22 home and away games in 2013 for a career total of 56. He was an emergency for the club’s recent AFL Grand Final win over Fremantle.

The 22-year-old Kiwi will be a valuable addition to St Kilda’s midfield as well as becoming an ambassador of the club’s increasing presence in New Zealand, having being born in Auckland where he lived until his family moved to Australia when he was two years old.

Thanks to Zain Nabi for the following article.

Pakistan Shaheen Team Manager Kashif Bouns has welcomed the overwhelming response from the Pakistani community in Australia, particularly the students, who have strongly backed the idea of entering the 2014 Australia Football League International Cup.

Following submission of nomination papers with the AFL, the Shaheens are now in the team building phase. Bouns believes students will play a handy role in forming a competitive unit. “I think the core of the team will be international students because the majority of Pakistanis here are students,” he says.

Apart from hiring athletes, the Shaheens are also shaping their organisational infrastructure and they have urged the Pakistani community here to participate in all the possible ways, and take up the ownership of this project.

Last weekend the first ever game of AFL played by women in NZ was held against the visiting Australia Breeze Youth Girls Team.

Though the result was a sound thrashing for the Kiwis nevertheless Women’s football has to start somewhere in NZ and now it has.

The result really was inconsequential as with all of the development programs through primary and secondary schools in NZ administered through AFL NZ such as KiwiKick, Hawks Cup and Play AFL 9’s the opportunities are there for the females in NZ to become increasingly involved.

Stand outs for the Kahus (Hawks in maori) on the day were Kayla Paniora, Firth Bidois, Claudia McMeekin-Currin and Kiana Laing.

The Victorian Amateur Football Association have continued their winning ways in New Zealand, beating the U-18 New Zealand Hawks 105-60.

The match was a fitting finale for the tour, with the result reflecting both the competitive nature of both matches, and the superior skill of VAFA.

For the Hawks, there were a number of strong performances. Rhys Panui-Leth, a former International Scholarship holder for Hawthorn, played a match befitting the honour of captaining his country, through his leadership in the midfield and poise in front of goal. Alex Barnsley was also a threat throughout the game, using physicality fearlessly to put pressure on his opposition.

During the game stars in the first match Kade Riddell and James McKenzie were again to the fore both kicking brilliant goals for the Hawks. By the end of the third quarter the Aussies were up tellingly 90-42.

The European Crusaders women’s team defeated the French Inattendues 45-26 at the Axios Euro Cup’s women’s game.

The women’s game was played in four quarters of fifteen minutes. The Crusaders, let by experienced Italian coach Mattia Sacchi, came out far stronger than the French expected, and the Inattendues, led by coach Pascal Ivorra, we not able to keep up. However, despite both sides having many players new to the game, the game was still very exciting and both sides showed great skill throughout the game. Switzerland player Erin Walter was named best on ground.

Narrowed down from a squad of 33 a little over a month ago the Australian team of 21 players for the International Rules series in Ireland has been named. The AFL chose to make up this year's team from players of Indigenous Australian heritage. They depart for Ireland on Saturday.

AFL New Zealand have hosted in conjunction with the 2013 AFL Grand Final, an annual Community Awards function.

The event was an opportunity to recognise and thank the many people and partner organisations that have contributed to the success of AFL New Zealand over the past year.

The many different aspects of AFL New Zealand’s strategies and programmes were put on display throughout the Community Awards. Encompassing and recognising the contributions of primary and secondary schools, regional sporting trusts, media organisations or AFL New Zealand High Performance participants and parents, the awards covered the breadth of the AFL community.

Last week we posted a story about the grand finals across the five major Australian Football leagues in the tropics (above the Tropic of Capricorn) of Queensland (see: ). This follow up story looks at the grand final stories of the big games across the Northern Territory. As a point of interest, many of these leagues played their finals much earlier in the year, but by including all that we can a bigger picture of the scope of Australian Rules football across the NT can be seen.

 

The VAFA U 18's are currently in NZ and have played the first game, in a 3 match series against the NZ Hawks.

For the first time the NZ team opposed to the Victorians is of the same age range, with previous tours being against a NZ team with older boys. As the talent pool in NZ has increased, the need for this advantage has decreased.

Once again the Victorians were too good but players who stood out in the NZ Hawks/ South Pacific Academy game on Anzac Day as the curtain raiser to the Sydney Swans/St Kilda game were once again prominent. Hawthorn scholarship holders Ben Miller and Siope Ngata were standouts as were Kade Riddell and James McKenzie who kicked 5 goals.

With the final scorse 103- 51 the Kiwis were by no means disgraced.