World Footy News

In October, over a hundred of Canada’s best women’s Australian Rules Football players will be in the nation’s capital to fight for the national championship title.

AFL Ontario club, the Ottawa Swans Australian Football Club, has won the bid to host the 2013 Women’s Canadian National Championships Oct. 11 to 13.

Australian Rules Football, also known as AFL or footy, is played widely in Australia through professional and recreational leagues. Internationally, especially on the women’s side, the sport has been rapidly growing.

“To say the team is excited is an understatement,” said Swans captain Lisa Dalla Rosa. “Knowing that this October we will be playing on our field, with our club, sponsors and city cheering us on will be great motivation not only for the tournament but for the up-coming season as well.  We cannot wait to host players from across Canada.  This is fantastic for women's footy in the capital."

The Ottawa Swans Australian Football Club was formed in 2006 by a group of Australian expats, and became a member of AFL Ontario and AFL Canada in 2007. The club has adopted the same name as the professional AFL club the Sydney Swans.

Both women’s and men’s teams play in the Ontario AFL, playing at home at the Rideau Carleton Raceway in Ottawa and travelling to Toronto to face competition.

Saturday a week ago, Masala Football Club secured their first victory – quite fittingly at the season mid-point and against fellow multicultural football side the Dragons (formerly known as the Southern Dragons). For those unfamiliar with Masala, they appear in World Footy News stories: Masala Football Club is born and Masala debuts in the heat.

As club co-founder and current president (and a no-longer-so-active WFN correspondent) I take you behind the scenes of the club, and share our journey so far. Hopefully it’s an entertaining read – perhaps it might also prove useful to others in Australia or abroad working to get a club up and running.

Austria has had an Australian Footy presence since 2004, initially with the Vienna Kangaroos and currently the Styrian Down Under Dogs based in Graz, who play in the Croatian Australian Football League and is this month about to debut in the field of International Footy, with the national team the 'Avalanche' taking on the Croatian Knights. 

Editor's update: this article referred to the possible full field debut for Austria (16-18 per side as opposed to 9s), however it has since been confirmed that such a match will not take place this year.

As Croatia is provisionally ranked  (40.61 rating points) and Austria (starting with 40.00 points) making its international debut,  the match will have no impact on our unofficial World Rankings.

In the absence of any preview or promotion so far of this European Footy "First" we can, however, predict the Rating Points of the competing Nations regardless of the outcome. It is assumed that the match is being played in Zagreb and the rating gap with Home Advantage is therefore 3.61. As the system predicts the higher ranked team will win more often than not,  a Knights victory (of less than 40 points) will produce a Rating Change of +/-0.96 points. Croatia (five internationals) finishing  with 41.56 points and Austria (first international) with 39.04 points.

If, however, the Avalanche can buck the odds and produce a debutante win, then the rating change would be +/- 2.04 points and Austria would finish with 42.04 points and Croatia would slip to 38.57 points.

If this match is actually played in Austria then points will be different - information has been hard to find.

Two 4WD troop carriers will be negotiating narrow bush tracks and river crossings, dust trailing behind the vehicles, as they travel seven hours across Arnhem Land from Maningrida to Nhulunbuy. They hope to pick up some extra players as they travel through the community of Ramingining.

At the same time, a squadron of five light planes will leave Galiwinku, flying across the waters of Buckingham Bay and the Gove Peninsula. They will probably look out of the plane window at the dust cloud formed by the vehicles coming in from Gapuwiyak, headed for the same destination.

Another collection of charter aircraft will be leaving Groote Eylandt to meet the others, as well as local teams in the Gove AFL. Yirrkala, Gunyangara and Gove teams should already be there.

Such a movement of people and vehicles begs the question. What’s going on?

On the weekend of 22 and 23 June, Nhulunbuy (Gove) will be hosting the East Arnhem Football Carnival. The mass movement of players and fans across the land and waters of Arnhem Land, Northern Territory, is headed for a huge Australian Rules football carnival in one of Australia’s more remote regions.

The international broadcast schedule for the AFL Round 11 can be seen below. All times are correct at the time of publishing and WFN takes no responsibility for changes to the schedule.

As of this week NZ free to air station Sommet Sports is officially up and running with respect to showing all the AFL matches live (see schedule below).

Round 11 will see Brisbane, Fremantle, Hawthorn, Port Adelaide, Richmond and the Western Bulldogs all having the week off.  Every club will have one of the weeks Round 11 - Round 13 as a bye.

In celebration of the first ever Women’s AFL match and AFL Women’s Round, Melbourne Football Club are giving away free tickets to see the Women’s match curtain raiser, followed by the Demon’s AFL clash against the Western Bulldogs. The tickets are available to all women and girls who play football or contribute to the game.

The history making Women’s Round fixture will take place at the MCG on Saturday the 29th of June from 5:10 pm. Tickets are limited so anyone interested in one needs to register as soon as possible at this link.

The AFLNT (Northern Territory) is delighted to have four of its U16 players selected in this year's 25-player Flying Boomerangs squad. The following is a press release from the AFL.

2013 Flying Boomerangs Squad Announced

The AFL is pleased to announce the 2013 Flying Boomerangs squad which will compete at the NAB AFL Under 16 Championships in July and will tour internationally in December.

The Flying Boomerangs squad will be coached by Eugene Warrior, former Port Adelaide (SANFL) player who currently coaches the Division One Salisbury North Football Club.