World Footy News

On Wednesday, May the 15th, the AFL will select the top 50 female players in Australia, with AFL chief executive officer Andrew Demetriou calling out the names of the top 10 players.

Friends and family of the nominees will be invited to attend the draft at simultaneous presentations in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, which will be linked up by video conferencing.

The draft and the game are both initiatives of the Melbourne Football Club, main sponsor of Australia’s top women’s league, the VWFL, and the Melbourne sector of the draft will be conducted in the club’s boardroom.

From the draft, the two teams that will represent the Melbourne and Western Bulldogs Football Clubs during the inaugural AFL Women’s Exhibition game will be selected. The women’s teams will face off at the MGC as a curtain raiser to the AFL game played by the two clubs during AFL Women’s Round on Saturday June 29.

A rather odd article appeared in the Herald Sun today.  It quotes AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou speaking at an American Chamber of Commerce function in Melbourne.  The headline read "The AFL admits it will not become an international sport".  That's pretty blunt and depressing for supporters of the growth of our great game.  But is that really what he said?

Yes and no.

Article courtesy of Glasgow Sharks’ Stacey Hughes.

The Haggis cup saw the Copper Sharks seeking revenge over the Diesel Sharks for a heavy defeat in Glasgow a week earlier. Leeroy Brown was traded for Zoe Rowe for this exhibition match in Edinburgh.

The Copper Sharks dominated early proceedings, outscoring the Diesel Sharks 20-2 in the opening quarter, which Saw Sue Noble score her first goal for the Copper Sharks.

 

 

Article courtesy of Glasgow Sharks’ Stacey Hughes and David Smith.

Victoria Park in the West End of Glasgow hosted the first ever Women's club match in Scotland on the 6th April 2013: Copper Sharks V Diesel Sharks.

The Diesel Sharks took the initiative early on in the match getting a couple of points on the board before Helen Cameron scored the opening goal of the match after a superb solo run, bouncing the ball twice before calmly slotting the ball between the posts. The Copper Sharks had no reply to a strong start from the Diesel Sharks who ended the quarter 20 points up.

An update from the Santiago Saints, based in Santiago de Chile.

The Saints have now been a club since 2008, with a mix of Chilean and expat players. We have had a number of players visiting or living in Chile involved with the mining industry and this has seen players with experience in the lower leagues in Australia pass on their knowledge to other players.

2012 saw a great charity match, with huge support from the Australian Embassy as well as other sponsors.

In 2013 the club is looking to lock in sponsors for a long term period, ensuring stability for the future.

Coach Leigh Barnes has announced that the USA Freedom will be holding a training camp from May 31 to June 2 in the San Francisco Bay area, in preparation for this year’s Parallel Cup, which will be held in Edmonton, Alberta, on August 3.

As well as existing squad members, the camp is also open to new players, and women from across the USA have been encouraged to attend. The coaches have indicated that the camp will consist of a mixture of football training, team building exercises and special events.

At the end of the weekend, the coaching staff will select a senior squad and a development squad to take to Canada. In addition, Barnes also hinted that they would be using the opportunity to look for potential representatives in advance of next year’s International Cup.

 

The international broadcast schedule for the AFL Round 7 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 as scheduled by Sommet Sports has been a lowlight of the AFL's recent efforts to promote the code via free to air TV in NZ. We are hopeful that the launch may come soon - the latest comment on Sommet Sports Facebook page is that "we are still waiting for a third party to come back to us and therefore we do not have any further update regarding our up coming launch. We will update you as soon as we have further information."

The Tiwi Islands off the coast of Darwin in the Northern Territory are famed for the Tiwi Bombers Football Club, whose number includes many first rate Indigenous players. However it is not just the men who are skilled with the football, as the Tiwi Bombers have long had a Youth Girls side to develop the female talent too. On the back of this, two of the Tiwi Islands female players, Gladys Puruntatameri and J-Lee Puautjimi, have been “loaned” to Melbourne’s Diamond Creek Football Club, in the southern state of Victoria, to train and play in Australia’s top women’s football league: the VWFL.

This unusual player transfer is part of the Tapalinga (Shining Star) Award, a leadership program created by Diamond Creek WFC and the Northern Territory based Starwin Management. As well as being allowed to play in the VWFL for up to five games this season, the award also includes three visits to Melbourne. The first excursion was from April 4-15 and included playing two games of football for the Creekers, visits to three AFL clubs, tickets to an AFL match and entry into a Melbourne International Comedy Festival show.

Ruby Leete is a well known name in women’s football in the north of Queensland. The Papua New Guinea born star grew up in Port Moresby and moved to Australia in 1996. Once settled in her new home of Cairns, she soon picked up the Aussie sports bug, first playing tennis, then netball, then rugby league. However it was only in 2009 after someone at her rugby club invited her to have a go that she got hooked on AFL.

Leete learnt her trade under premiership winning team North Cairns Tigers, and supported by her netballer’s jump and firm hands, the club continued to dominate week after week in the growing Cairns league. However, after playing for the Tigers for two seasons, Leete eventually decided to switch to her current team, South Cairns Cutters.

Zach Tuohy and Marty Clarke continue to be solid weekly contributors in Carlton and Collingwood's AFL teams. Pearce Hanley returns from injury this week for Brisbane, Niall McKeever played two weeks ago for them but won't be in the senior side this week. Setanta o'hAilpin is sidelined with injury this week after kicking eight goals in the past two games at GWS while across at the Swans Tommy Walsh has been named on an extened bench and will be hopeful of his first senior match for 2013.

But another Irish youth (albeit Australian raised) will debut for the GWS this week. Eighteen year-old defender Aidan Corr will make his AFL debut against Essendon at Etihad Stadium on Saturday.

The GWS Giants have released the following official interview with European scholarship player Aksel Bang from Denmark, including some talk about his time in the Danish military in Afghanistan and footy in Europe. Aksel will play for the GWS reserves next weekend, before returning to his military service in Afghanistan.

This ANZAC weekend proved to be a blockbuster for Australian football in Asia, with international East Asia Australian Football League (EAAFL) matches played in two countries, and many domestic matches played across the continent.

The Vietnam Swans hosted the Jakarta Bintangs in Vung Tau, while the Singapore Wombats hosted both the Malaysia Warriors and Cambodian Eagles. There were important domestic ANZAC matches played in Indonesia, Thailand, Japan and Philippines.

The Swans were defeated by the Bintangs in a close match at the old Lord Mayor’s Oval in Vung Tau. The field is inside a greyhound racing track, but was the very same oval where Australian soldiers played footy during the Vietnam War. The significant event even attracted the presence of three Vietnam Veterans who had graced that very field in the 1960s.

Jakarta won the match 10.9 (69) to Vietnam’s 8.11 (59), marking a win for Jakarta’s first EAAFL match in front of over 500 spectators. This leaves Vietnam winless after their third EAAFL match.