World Footy News

The AFL and Australia Post today released the names of the 22 players who have been selected in the first ever Multicultural Team of Champions.

As part of the AFL's Multicultural Round celebration, the team was announced at a special event held at Crown in Melbourne, attended by AFL Deputy CEO Gillon McLachlan and Australia Post Managing Director and CEO Ahmed Fahour, as well as a number of the selected players.

AFL Legends Jock McHale has been named coach and Alex Jesaulenko has been named captain of the Australia Post AFL Multicultural Team of Champions.

Round 1 of the NAB National Under 16 Championships was played out across the weekend at the Blacktown International Sports Park in Sydney.

The AFL South Pacific Under 16s squad had a warm up game last week at the same venue against local Sydney side Sydney Hills (pictured below); with South Pacific prevailing 10.6.(66) to Sydney Hills 7.2.(44). A good lead in to their first tournament game against the Australian indigenous Flying Boomerangs on Sunday.

The Australian Football League launched on Monday the 2013 Multicultural Round, a themed round to recognise our game’s cultural diversity.

AFL Head of Diversity Jason Mifsud, Geelong Vice-Captain Jimmy Bartel, Australia Post AFL Multicultural Ambassadors Bachar Houli and Majak Daw, and participants from The Bachar Houli and Majak Daw Academies attended the launch event held at AFL House in Melbourne.

Round 16 of the Toyota AFL Premiership season will celebrate ‘Many Cultures, One Game', recognising the many players from multicultural backgrounds, who make up 15 per cent of the AFL player list.

AFL Head of Diversity, Jason Mifsud said the Multicultural Round highlights the contribution multicultural communities have made to Australia's game, as well as the community engagement initiatives currently being undertaken by the AFL industry.

"It is important the AFL reflects cultural diversity, providing an environment which welcomes people from all backgrounds to enjoy our game as supporters, players or administrators in the future," said Mr. Mifsud.

A major feature of the AFL's involvement with international footy has been the annual overseas tour conducted by the AIS-AFL Academy side.  The AIS (Australian Institute of Sport) is a Federal Government initiative primarily aimed at raising the standard of Australia's Olympics hopefuls, so it was always a slightly odd connection to include an Australian football contingent, but one that was no doubt carefully orchestrated by the AFL for the monetary assistance, elite training and attraction for elite young sportsmen.

That relationship has come to end.  It was announced last Monday that the 2013/2014 intake will be the last to hold the AIS-AFL Academy title. 

 

 

The World XVIII kicked off their tournament yesterday with a 9 point win over the WA North-West team. The South Pacific team went down to the Flying Boomerangs by 14 points.

Results from the opening round of matches at the 2013 NAB AFL Under-16 Championships played yesterday at Blacktown International Sportspark in Sydney can be seen below.

Tru Blu Entertainment announced today that AFL Live 2 is currently in development and will be released later this year on PlayStation®3 and Xbox 360®. AFL Live 2 promises to deliver a deeper and richer gameplay experience, as well as adding new features to the successful franchise.

AFL Live 2 now includes a comprehensive career mode, spanning 15 years, allowing fans to manage their players and their team all the way from the TAC Cup through the Peter Jackson VFL and into the Toyota AFL Premiership Season. The career manager mode also allows control over training, where players gain experience and can have individual statistics improved to suit your style of play. Sponsorships, staffing, tribunal, emails, drafting and trading are all included to be used as you progress throughout the Career Mode.

On a beautiful Saturday in Cairns recently, I was told about three women playing for New South Wales at the 2013 Women’s National Championships. The three ladies in question had all come a long, long way to be there, having started their Australian Rules football journeys many years before back home in Ireland. I was given the chance to meet them and have a chat as we watched the Division 2 Grand Final.

 It was the New South Wales Assistant Coach, David Yole, who introduced me, but not before a couple of words. “They have all played well this carnival,” he said. “They are three great young women.” Then he proceeded to call them up to meet me. It is difficult to conduct a true interview when sitting in a grandstand, and the crowd periodically screams their approval at a mark, goal, tackle or burst of speed. So, it is true that the questions asked that day did not have complete answers.

We agreed to fill in the gaps via social media when the girls returned to Sydney after the carnival. But the questions can be found below with the individual responses of Una Mckay, Sandra Ryan and Christine McCutcheon, who are not only known here in Australia as members of their Sydney teams and the state squad, but also members of the Irish Banshees international team back in their homeland.

To me, these answers made fascinating reading as they give a great analysis of the thought processes involved, and the opportunities, sacrifices and successes faced along the way for almost any sports player, but particularly women chasing their dreams of playing Australian Rules football.

The following article was written by Tor Ivar Amundsen from the Oslo Crows. It is reproduced here in its entirety with the kind permission of Tor and also the Crows. There is a clear story of development within these words which paints a very bright future for Australian football in Norway. It is just the tonic for the game in Norway as those involved in the game prepare for a range of upcoming international appointments, particularly the Euro Cup.  Over to Tor and AFL Sweden's Swedish Cup in Jönköping...

The Crows came into this tournament with lots of spirit and high hopes to do better than last year. As many remember, last year the Stockholm weather showed us the worst June day since 1904 and they cancelled the tournament after 3 games. That day the Crows lost 2 and won the last.

This year we had perfect conditions, sunny and only a light wind that didn’t have any impact on the play. The Crows line up was a mixed team assembled by Oslo Crows, Ås Battlers and Bergen Bears, and it had never played a game as one team before which made us a little uncertain on what we could expect of ourselves.

We started our first game against Södermalm which everyone had as favourites. We don’t talk much about this game other than the result… 7.4 (46) – 1.0 (6) in the Swedes’ favour, and that Samson and Tor gave a bit of beating in the last couple of minutes which ended in 5 stitches for Samson and a lot of sore players from Södermalm .

This Scottish club, better known to most as the Central Magpies, have been sitting on a secret for a while now. As the football world has turned all around them, a new image, name and purpose has been developing in the Kingdom of Fife. This article, written by Rab (Robert) Dempsey has been reproduced with his, and the club’s, permission to spread the word to the waiting footballing world.

THE MOB GOES WILD
By Rab Dempsey

Kingdom Kangaroos are Scotland’s newest footy team, hoping to emulate the "Shinboner" spirit of their North Melbourne counterparts when they officially join SARFL next season.

The early origins of the club can be traced back to 2012 when former Glasgow Sharks and Scottish Clansmen player Douglas Hunter tried to start a club covering Central Scotland and Fife.

Whilst SARFL had been running for years, the competing teams were only based in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.

It is almost hard to believe that the AFL Middle East Grand Final was over three months ago, back on March 8th. Time has flown by without a full report on the season and, of course, the Grand Final result itself. In the first of a small series of articles on Australian football across the Middle East, a brief look at the season that was gives a small taste of the way footy panned out across the region.

The 2012-13 season kicked off with the pre-season AFL9’s tournament in September at the Nad Al Sheba Sports Arena (NASSA) in Dubai. The Meydan Cup was played enthusiastically with the Dubai Dingoes winning the day against their arch rivals, the Dubai Dragons, with a last minute surge to fall over the line in extra time.

As the season proper came closer it became apparent that the Bahrain Blues would not take their place in the league for this new season. It is universally hoped that they can return for the 2013/4 season.

We've heard some interesting stories over the years from across the world of footy of teams stacked with top quality ring-ins from Australia, but few reports would beat the following for a team so lowly to be stacked so well.

The Adelaide University Football Club, known as The Blacks, has a long history in the South Australian Amateur Football League dating back to 1906.  Self-described as the World's Greatest Football Clubs, the AUFC is surely one of the biggest (in fact we'd love to hear examples of any that are larger).

In season 2013 the club has teams in Division 1, 1 Reserves, 6, 6 Reserves, 8, 8 Reserves, C1, Over 35s (known as the Greys rather than Blacks) and a Women's side for the first time (competing in the South Australian Women's Football League) - giving a grand total of 9 open age teams.

Last week saw an interesting tale of five brothers taking to the field.  You can imagine that down at Division 8 Reserves level exceptional talent is, well, spread fairly thin.  University affectionately call their 8R team the Scum, and if the A grade lost a game then AUFC legend Fred "Chocka" Bloch often consoled the club that order had been restored to the Universe because the Scum had lost by more.  But not last week.

The AFL today announced the Indigenous All Stars would be selected to represent Australia in the 2013 International Rules Series, to be played in Ireland this October.

AIS-AFL Academy Head Coach and former Sydney Swans games-record holder Michael O’Loughlin will coach the side, with the senior coaching panel to be made up of Rodney Eade, Tadhg Kennelly and Andrew McLeod.

AFL Deputy CEO Gillon McLachlan said the AFL had explored the concept of the All Stars representing Australia after senior indigenous players across the AFL player group had sought greater opportunities for the All Stars to come together as a team.

“To the best of our knowledge, the All Stars representing the AFL in International Rules against Ireland will be the first All-Indigenous team to represent a national sporting code at senior level overseas since the first cricket team toured England in 1868, more than 150 years ago,” Mr McLachlan said.

“It is our belief the All Stars coming together, with the commitment made by senior indigenous players across the competition, will reinvigorate matches between Australia and Ireland provide us with a great opportunity to regain the Cormac McAnallen Trophy.