World Footy News

The following media release from the AFLNT details the upcoming national schools AFL championships being held in Darwin. This carnival is a great breeding ground for future AFL stars, and for many the schools program is every bit as important as regular competition.

Commencing Sunday, TIO Stadium will host around 500 students from around Australia for the annual School Sport Australia 12 and under, 15 and under Boys and 16 and under Girls Championships.

School Sport NT CEO Helen Taylor is extremely excited at the prospect of hosting the championships again in 2013. “We look forward to hosting a successful event in the NT as AFL has always been close to our hearts, with numerous participants going on to the big time more recently Jake Neade and Jed Anderson to name two.”

“We have heard that the Victorian team especially are keen to escape the cold but are excited about the prospect of playing at TIO Stadium for the first time.

The Championships not only provide a great sporting spectacle but are expected to provide a great economic benefit to the NT with over 20 teams from across Australia converging on Darwin.

American Eric Wallace is a chance to step up to the North Ballarat VFL senior team this weekend. Wallace has been named on an extended ten man bench for Sunday's clash against the Collingwood VFL team.

Wallace showed good form last week against Coburg (see video below) and with 10 games under his belt in the development league this would be a huge step up in his monumental climb to one day play in the AFL.

Some of Wallace's countrymen attended training with North Melbourne yesterday as crew from the USS Lassen learnt about Australian football from the North Melbourne players.

AFL Northern Territory and Netball Northern Territory in conjunction with Federal Minister for Sport and Recreation Don Farrell today announced an ongoing commitment of Federal funding totalling $900,000 over a three year period to support grass roots sport development by both codes.

AFLNT CEO Tony Frawley welcomed the decision to confirm the ongoing funding that has been set in the Federal budget and will go toward the continued development of AFL in the NT specifically AFLNT’s community enhancement football programs in Central Australia.

Helsingborg Saints are well on their way to starting Sweden’s first women’s team.

With six enthusiastic female members and more joining up each week, Saints player Jacob Lantz feels it won’t be long before Sweden has a female Euro Cup team, and there might even be a Swedish or Scandinavian appearance at the Women’s IC14.

It all started when Lantz was discussing ways to introduce the sport to more people in Helsingborg and draw larger crowds for home games with club founder Ingmar Lundquist and coach Leighton Rowsell. The decided to try starting an 8-a-side touch footy competition and encouraged their friends to come and have a go.

The third day's play at the DCU Sportground in Dublin has been completed, with each match going to plan according to the seedings.

Denmark	2.3	4.5	7.8	8.12 (60)
Germany	0.1	0.1	0.1	2.1 (13)
Great Britain	2.0	4.2	6.3	6.4 (40)
Sweden	0.0	1.0	2.1	3.2 (20)
Ireland	2.3	3.7	7.9	12.11 (83)
Croatia	1.0	1.0	1.1	1.1 (7)

Saturday will see Ireland vs Great Britain play off for the European Championship, with Sweden vs Denmark for 3rd place, and Croatia vs Germany for 5th.

Match reports and stats to come.

The AFL today released the seventeenth AIS-AFL Academy squads.

The 61 players will receive an AIS-AFL Academy scholarship and will come together four times over the next 12 months for training camps. Both squads will also travel overseas again, one to NZ and one to Europe.

The Level One squad was selected following the NAB AFL Under-16 Championships. They will be coached by AFL Engagement and Talent Co-ordinator Chris Johnson.

Sweden's win over Croatia on day two of the European Championships has lifted them to 11th Ranking above Denmark. Ironically the win against Croatia has left the two nations with identical rating points (39.55) although Croatia has two more matches to qualify to be fully Ranked.

Major Australian bank NAB are looking for multilingual footy fans to broadcast the 2013 AFL Grand Final live in languages other than English.

As part of their "Footify" project to grow the game throughout Australia, they hope to have the Grand Final broadcast live in at least 10 different languages, and are looking for suitably skilled fans to apply to do the job.

If that sounds of interest to you (and presumably there are a fair number of WFN readers who might qualify) then all the information is available here!

The 2013 Solomon Islands AFL Grand Final is set to go this Thursday afternoon. With the White River Demons set to take on the more fancied Central Eagles in the big game - starting 4.30pm on the KGVI School Oval.

The Central Coast Eagles went down narrowly last year in the 2012 Grand Final by 4 pts to the Rove Magpies. Undoubtedly they will be keen to go one better this year.

The second day's play at the DCU Sportground in Dublin has been completed, with the higher seeds triumphing in each match, though not without some strong challenges.

Sweden defeated Croatia in the first match of the day, despite the Croatians making a good contest of it. The next match then saw Great Britain comfortably account for Germany in the first-ever encounter between the two nations.

The evening's play ended with Denmark threatening a major upset, leading the Irish at every change before the Warriors were able to overtake them in the last quarter. The Vikings will surely be disappointed, after similarly being overrun in the last quarter of the round 1 match against Great Britain.

Sweden	1.3	3.7	4.10	5.11 (41)
Croatia	1.1	2.1	4.1	5.2 (32)
Great Britain	3.1	7.7	7.7	9.12 (66)
Germany	0.1	0.2	2.3	2.3 (15)
Ireland	0.1	2.3	3.5	7.7 (49)
Denmark	4.0	5.1	6.2	6.3 (39)

Full match reports with best players and goal kickers are now available on the tournament website:
Warriors deny Vikings again
Bulldogs reach their First Final
Elks win over Knights

The GB Bulldogs have now booked a spot in Saturday's final. Their opponent will likely be Ireland, although there is still another round of group matches to play and a win for Croatia over the Irish could change the standings.

The 2012-2013 French season has ran its course, officially closing on the 22nd of June with the annual French Cup.

In the development league, consisting of France's newest and struggling teams, the Montpellier Fire Sharks won their second title in a row. Unfortunately the Marseille Dockers, could not play any of their games this season, effectively making this year's edition of the development league a two team contest.

Montpellier won their first confrontation against Cergy in a one way game at home during the winter. The decider was played in Cergy a few month later with the travelling team narrowly winning the game to secure their second title: Cergy Coyotes 10.8 (68) – 9.17 (71) Montpellier Fire Sharks.

In the Super league, things turned out for the worst for reigning champions Bordeaux. At the end of the winter the Bombers were on top of the ladder hoping to hold on their crown. Unfortunately for them at string of defeats at home against the Toulouse Hawks and the Paris Cockerels put an end to their hopes of title.