World Footy News

On the 17th of July, the leading women involved in football in Europe (outside of Ireland) got together via tele-conferencing to discuss this year’s Axios Euro Cup, which will be held in Bordeaux on the 21st of September.

For the last few years, Ireland has managed to a field a team, and another country (or a collaboration of countries, such as last year’s European Crusaders) has also put a team in to play them in a women’s exhibition match. However, with the women’s game finally beginning to grow outside of Ireland, it might finally be possible to have a genuine women’s competition alongside the men’s competition at this year’s Euro Cup.

As this year’s Euro Cup will be hosted in France, and with a number of female players in Bordeaux, Paris and Toulouse, AFL France’s Women’s Football Co-ordinator, Berengere Portal, has confirmed that the French aim to put out a home side.

The Victorian Women’s Football League Executive and its clubs have voted to transfer the governance and maintenance of the league to AFL Victoria. The transfer will be competed by the 1st of November, 2013.

The vote is the culmination of more than a year of work between the VWFL, AFL Victoria and the Transitional Working Group. The TWG was formed in May 2012 to develop a future competition model for women’s clubs.

AFL Victoria’s General Manager, Grant Williams, said that the changes would be a positive step for women’s football in Victoria. He pointed to the current collaborative approach and the recent successes of the state team as an example of how the women’s game will further develop in Victoria. He also thanked the VWFL Executive for their input into making the vote happen.

As part of the transfer, the existing VWFL, which features a premiers and reserves metro league with two country leagues, will be restructured to form a true state level competition. Williams believes that this will help further develop the pathway for female football players in Victoria and enhance initiatives such as the AFL Victoria VWFL Academy.

VWFL President Naomi Hurst said that the new structure would be more efficient and effective for administering the women’s leagues in Victoria. She also said that the considerable expertise and resources of AFL Victoria would provide invaluable support and guidance in managing the development of the women’s game into the future.

Collaboration with state AFL organisations has been very successful for women’s football leagues in the Rugby League heartlands of New South Wales and Queensland, whilst the women’s leagues in the smaller states of ACT and Tasmania, both of which did well at the recent Women’s National Championships, would not exist without AFL support.

In our previous story An Avalanche of Austrian Talent about the rebuilding of Australian Rules football in Austria, Oliver Krajacic painted a picture of a re-birth of sorts, due mainly to hard work and a connection to the Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.

That was on the back of a hectic off-season which saw structural and planning changes for Austrian footy, but was also rather theory-based. The measure of success would be tangible progress and change for the better as the 2013 season wore on.

At this point, Oliver can fill in the blanks.

“Our president Martin Schittegg had come up with the idea of holding an Austrian championship of sorts after we picked up some new players throughout the course of the year. By adding some retired veterans, some interested newcomers and our new additions to the team, we managed to put together the Murtal Mountain Goats, Gradec Earthmovers and Castle Rock Mammoths.”

GSCN will last week provided a live stream of the USAFL match between the Columbus Jackaroos and the Nashville Kangaroos. You can now hear the audio on demand at this link - http://www.gemcitysports.com/7132013-columbus-vs-nashville-australian-football/

 

 

The following article, written by David Stone for the Oslo Crows website, details the recently played second round of the Kenguru Cup. The third round will be played shortly, on 1st August, again at the Storebrand Stadion. Out thanks to the crew in Norway for the article, and we wish them well as they develop their players ahead of the upcoming Euro Cup.

The UMBI Ås Battlers have shot to the top of the Kenguru Cup table after two emphatic wins in the second round of the Kenguru Cup. The Battlers sit one game clear on top of the ladder after putting both Oslo East and Oslo West to the sword at Storebrand Stadion.

Heavy rain the day before the matches didn’t disturb the playing surface. In fact the rain took the hardness out of the ground, creating perfect conditions for Australsk Fotball.

AFL Europe’s Gaelle Hazimeh and AFL England’s Women’s Football Co-Ordinator Tobietta Rhyman have teamed up to host a women’s football training session in London later this month. The session will take place on Saturday the 27th of July from 10:00 on Clapham Common.

The session will include a meet and greet, mixed level training and skills development, followed by an opportunity to discuss the future of women’s football in the UK and Europe with Hazimeh and Rhyman over lunch.

The AFL NZ have named their AFL New Zealand Heritage team, representing the best 22 players of New Zealand heritage to have played in the AFL.

Attending the inaugural High Performance Awards for AFL New Zealand, I was surprised at some of the players selected to be acknowledged as part of the team.

Richmond's Dustin Martin stands out in any crowd, with his neck tattoo signifying his tribal heritage, as does the Maori artwork inked on the arms of former Carlton player Paul Bower and Collingwood's Marley Williams. Frankston's Khan Haretuku's surname provides a hint and the media space afforded recently to the promising Hawthorn duo of Kurt Heatherley and Shem Tatupu would cause their selection to be no surprise.

This team is relevant to current times with the criteria seeming to be active players now, or very recently.

Given that, the full squad can been seen on the video clips available here.

Cristiano Colizzi, Communications & Media Manager at the Roma Football Club, was justifiably excited when chatting about the 2013 season. His beloved Roma team had just won their second premiership in the four year history of the competition in Italy, so when the nuggetty Blue’s back pocket was asked to tell a little more he decided to start…at the beginning.

“AFL Italia was born in 2009 thanks to Nicola Giampaolo and Armando Colombo, who started training some guys for a national (Italy) team. At the 2009 Euro Cup in Zagreb (Samobor), they placed 13th overall.”

“Then, with Luca Tramontin, they started to involve some guys near Milan and Lugano (Switzerland). Meanwhile Marco Musella [made] contact with them and started building a team in Rome. On December 12th 2009, Marco founded the Roma Football Club (RFC), choosing colours and logo of the Carlton Football Club from Down Under.”

“In 2010 [we] started the first Italian premiership with the Milano Footy Club, Roma Football Club, Genova Dockers and the Lugano Bankers.”

The World XVIII today completed a clean sweep of matches in their division of the NAB AFL Under-16 Championships kicking 25.13 to the Flying Boomerangs 5.3. The South Pacific team went down heavily to the WA Northwest team.

Yesterday the Victorian Country team defeated South Australia 9.8 to 8.12 to take the Division 1 title. NSW/ACT defeated Tasmania today to take out Division 2.

Division Two & Three results – Round Three matches played today at the Blacktown International Sportspark in Sydney.

World XVIII 25.13 (163)
Flying Boomerangs 5.3 (33)

GOALS
World XVIII: Sokoyi 5, McGivney 3, Paligorov 2, Kenny 2, Chol 2, Mamur 2, Kerbatieh, Aujla, Jok, Kassem, Kennedy, Moshoeshoe, Greyling, Mkhize, Sekori
Flying Boomerangs: Young 2, Hampton 2, Nelson

BEST
World XVIII: Kerbatieh, Aujla, Jok, Sokoyi, McGivney, El Moussalli
Flying Boomerangs: Gresham, Young, Davis, Wilkes, Powell-Pepper, Waterbury


WA North West 16.15 (111)
South Pacific 3.9 (27)

GOALS
WA North West: Birch 6, Lockyer, Djiagween, Petera, Gore, Curtain, Martin, Ah Chee, Shaw, Adams, Oakley
South Pacific: Savere, Clark, Tuvasi, Foilape

BEST
WA North West: Simons, Butler, Cox, Birch, Adams, Evans
South Pacific: Savere, B.Tirang, Riddell, Rai, Reti, J.Tirang, Ramo

The World XVIII won Division Three

The city of Cairns is currently in preparation mode for our next AFL match on Saturday. Whilst we are a little concerned about whether we will see more premiership matches here in 2014 and beyond (something which will be discussed at all levels post-game), the people of this far northern city and looking forward to a tremendous match.

 In 2009, the Gold Coast suns ran down the Essendon VFL affiliate, the Bendigo Bombers, with a goal in the dying seconds to steal the match. The match in 2010 provided one of the season’s genuine upsets when the Suns defeated the highly fancied Tigers by making better use of the howling gale that day. Then last year, the amazing Karmichael Hunt goal after the siren to win the game left an impression in everyone’s mind of what a great game was being bought to the city.

This latest press release from the AFL provides more details, as well as providing some momentum for future matches in Cairns from next year onwards.

 

Mike McFarlane tells the story of his dad and his cousin playing kick to kick for hours down in Port Melbourne. Nothing out of the ordinary there, until he hits you with the news that the cousin was none other than Bob Skilton: three time Brownlow Medallist, South Melbourne superstar and legend of the game. It is now easier to sense that those Skilton genes have something to do with this remarkable story out of British Columbia, Canada.

“Bob Skilton is my second cousin and grew up with my father in Port Melbourne. My dad often told us stories of going to the park with Bob to kick footies for hours at a time. We have met him a few times and I think he is proud that relatives of his have had some success in footy even though it is in a different country. My daughter, wife and I are huge Swans fans and this is not only because they wear the Canadian colors, red and white but also because of our proud family connection to the Swans!”

That lineage has just produced another great feat with the selection of Hanna McFarlane, the daughter of Mike (and that would be niece of Bob) to represent Canada in the Northern Lights women’s national team in the upcoming Parallel Cup against the USA Freedom.