World Footy News

Although not well publicised, a Denmark versus Germany international was played on the weekend, on Saturday 18th May in Copenhagen.

As a result of Denmark's 20.21 (141) to 1.1 (7) thumping win over Germany, the Vikings have climbed three spots on our World Rankings. There was much discussion previously as to whether the Danes were too lowly ranked, but as pointed out the best way to remedy that is to defeat the teams close on the ladder.

As a result of this match and the earlier shared series between Great Britain and Ireland, eight nations have seen either a rise or fall in their position on our World Rankings since our last formal update on 24 November 2012.

Great Britain (46.51 rating points) has climbed two spots from 9th to 7th at the expense of USA (45.87) and Tonga (44.73) pushing them down one spot each to 8th and 9th respectively.

Denmark's 134 point win over Germany sees them leapfrog over Canada (37.82), Sweden (37.41) and Germany (35.73) from 14th up to 11th place. Canada and Sweden have been pushed down one spot each to 12th and 13th respectively.

Germany has slipped two spots from 13th to 15th allowing Peace Team (36.46) to climb 0.73 rating points above them at 14th.

The standings of all nations currently on the worldfootynews.com unofficial World Rankings, and the rank change since 24 November 2012, are as follows:

Match report taken from the Glasgow Sharks website and written by "the Great White".

Hello and welcome Sharks; fans. Saturday saw round 2 of the Caledonian AFL with a hotly contested match between the Tigers and the Makos. The Tigers were looking to start their season off in style while the Makos were looking to redeem themselves after going down heavily to the Cards in round 1. The Makos welcomed back utility Alexander Clark and Captain Adam Jack while the Tigers were having to deal with the significant loss of Andy Dubojski. The day was cold but dry under threatening skies. The Tigers won the toss and elected to kick to the city end of Victoria Park leaving the Makos heading to the stadium end. 

A permanent new feature of the Cairns AFL landscape will be played out on the streets and football fields of this North Queensland city next Sunday 19th May.

According to Shaun Nancarrow, Club Development Officer for AFL Cairns, “Local club, the Cairns City Lions, supported by their Event Partners – Harbrow Mentoring, Cairns Regional Council and the Cairns Post -will host the first Walk for Reconciliation along the Cairns Esplanade, departing from the Sound Stage at Fogarty Park and making their way to the Osprey function zone 2.5 kilometres away. Local indigenous health group Wuchopperen will provide healthy snacks at the conclusion of the event while the walkers who wish to attend the footy wait to be transported to the Holloway’s Beach Sporting Complex for the second annual ‘Dreamtime by the Sea’ game.”

This event is largely the creation of the Cairns City Lions football club. They plan to host these events to recognise the contribution and commitment Indigenous players and their families bring to the game of Australian Rules football at a local and national level.

The opening round of Norway’s Kenguru Cup for 2013 was played last night in Olso. According to Adam Pearce, president of AFL Norway, "[we had] three good and close Kenguru Cup games tonight. Each team won one game so it’s looking like it might be an exciting league this year."

As mentioned in a previous article on Norwegian footy, the 9-a-side format last year worked well with the Oslo team separated into East and West, and the Ås university team making for a three team competition. This format was again used for this year’s tournament.

Results saw all three teams sharing the spoils, proving that the formula is a success and providing an even spread of talent, and a belief amongst all players that they can achieve success. Significantly, the Olso West team, who came in third place last year, took the honours this year, highlighting the success of their recruiting and retention program. This was foretold by Adam last year when he suggested that, "Oslo West also has the potential to win as well if they can hold the same regular players."

 

The international broadcast schedule for the AFL Round 8 can be seen below. All times are correct at the time of publishing and WFN takes no responsibility for changes to the schedule.

The failure to launch AFL match coverage on free to air TV in NZ as scheduled by Sommet Sports has been a lowlight of the AFL's recent efforts to promote the code  in NZ. We are hopeful that the launch may come soon - it now appears Sommet Sports are broadcasting their test page and hopefully the launch and AFL coverage will begin soon.

Victoria Metro have retained their Youth Girls Champions title by defeating closest rival Western Australia by 6.4 (40) to 3.7 (25).

Meanwhile in the other finals, the up and coming Queensland side just scraped past the combined Victoria Country/ Tasmania team in a nail biting 3.7(25) to 3.2(20) scrap for third spot, whilst the underperforming New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory team was blown over by the developing South Australia / Northern Territory team 6.6(42) to 1.1(7) in the battle for fifth.

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Shem Tatupu has recently been in Melbourne as part of his International Scholarship with the Hawthorn Football Club.

In a move that could be likened to "Selling ice to the Eskimos" Shem has been out and about in Melbourne taking footy clinics at a variety of schools.

In an interesting article http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/other-sp...ars-in-AFL his journey so far makes great reading.

In celebration of 4 years of Stateside Footy TV, the USAFL have released an article on their website commemorating the work put in by the show’s legendary commentator and producer, Bill Robert.

SSFTV started filming USAFL games in July 2010 and aired their first episode a month later in August. The 4th season of the show is due to be aired from next month. To date, 40 episodes have been filmed and the show has been aired on 81 public access channels across 21 states, and has been viewed online by over 20,000 fans.

For a quick fix of “Australian made, American played”, take a look at the show’s flashy new USAFL promotion video which will feature during breaks in the 2013 show.

For more information on Bill Robert’s contributions to the game in the USA, please read the original article written by Boston Demon and USAFL VP Mike Sheppard.

The AFL has announced the top 50 female players in Australia as part of the Women's Draft which precedes the "Women's AFL" exhibition game. The game will be played as a curtain raiser to the Women’s Round AFL game between Melbourne FC and Western Bulldogs at the MCG on the 29th of June.

The two AFL Clubs were given the opportunity to select the players from the draft to represent them in the curtain raiser. Also selected were two of Australia’s top female coaches: Michelle Cowan has been appointed coach of the Melbourne FC women’s team, and Peta Searle has been appointed coach of the Western Bulldogs women’s team.

Unsurprisingly, players from the VWFL dominated the selection, with powerhouse Darebin Falcons notching up nothing short of 10 players on the list, 3 of whom where named in the top 10.

A spokesperson from Darebin Falcons told us, “The girls certainly did their club proud. It was a successful night for Darebin, but more importantly for women's football as a whole. It’s fantastic to see these women receiving a reward for their effort.”

Across town, Melbourne University’s team had 6 players selected, whilst in Western Australia, Coastal Titans managed 4 players on the list and Swan Districs had two players named in the top 10.

Representatives from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia also found their way into the top 50, echoing the promising results from the recent Youth Girls National Championships, and showing that the gap between the two top states and their closest rivals is slowly closing.

Read the full story for the full list of the top 50 female players, their home clubs and the AFL team they have been selected to play for.

Match report taken from the Glasgow Sharks website and written by "the Great White"

Hello and welcome Sharks fans. Saturday saw the CAFL (Glasgow metro league) season opener with a replay of last year’s grand final between the Cards and the Makos. The Makos fell at the final hurdle last season and so were looking to even the ledger and kick start the new season with a victory. The Cards were also looking to start the season with a bang and maintain their dominance of the league they enjoyed last season.

With both teams missing key players it would be down to each team’s new recruits and second year players to get the job done. The game got underway under sunny skies but feeling very cold. With the turf crunching underfoot the cards were kicking to the stadium end of Victoria Park and the makos heading to the city end.

Alberta is a province in Western Canada that is in the encouraging position of having two cities hosting Australian Football clubs. The following article is from Jason Arnold and Chantal Spindler of the men’s and women’s teams who report on the interesting formation, proud achievements and exciting developments of the Edmonton Australian Football Club.

It’s been an active off season for the Edmonton Australian Football Club.  The club’s teams, the Edmonton Emus (women’s) and the Edmonton Wombats (men’s) haven’t let the long winter slow them down.  They’ve been conducting weekly training sessions, since mid-October.  Significant recruitment efforts have seen the EAFC double their numbers and record a constant 40+ at training.

The club was established as the ‘Edmonton Emus’ in 2008 by Tristan Waldock, who coached the women’s team for two years.  The Wombats (men’s) officially joined the following year in 2009, initially led by Hamish Martin, then led by Brad Havin upon Hamish’s return to Australia.  The Edmonton Australian Football Club was then formed.

After much hard work in the off season 2012 was a breakthrough year with the Wombats enjoying successes at the Kelowna Cup (Western Canada’s first tournament of the season, hosting teams from Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton) and being super competitive in the Stampede Cup against Calgary later in the season.  Off the back of great performances by their National reps, the Emus had their first win over the Calgary Kookaburras at the inaugural Capital Cup.
 

If you build it, they will come.

That was the motto used five years ago when the fledgling Montreal footy club was desperate to get visiting teams into town and build a unique 9-a-side event that put the spotlight on rookie Aussie Rules players.

Armed with the lure of a European-style city like no other in North America, for the very first time some applications for the 2013 tournament had to be refused as the tournament’s 4 women’s and 8 men’s slots filled in record time. Teams from New York, Ottawa, Boston, Baltimore and Halifax all committing to take on Montreal’s spread of home teams in the AFL Quebec Preseason Cup. An estimated 150+ players will be on hand for what will be Quebec footy’s finest hour.