World Footy News

Illinois basketballer Sam McLaurin has some impressive highlights (seen in the video reel below) both at his former college team Coastal Carolina and his current Illinois Fighting Illini team.  Standing at 203cms the 23 year old is a potential AFL ruckman and will be put through his paces in LA from April 14-16 in the second official US Combine.

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Following their 9.5 (59) to 1.1 (7) victory over Ireland's Warriors on 6th April in Guildford, the Great Britain Bulldogs have climbed two spots to 7th on our unofficial World Rankings. The US and Tonga each slipped a position as a result. Ireland maintained their position as number two behind Australia, but their margin over PNG is now perilously narrow.

The Bulldogs head across to Dublin for the second and final match of the series against Ireland, scheduled for 20th April.

See below for interim rankings update.

Upon the completion of the last match on Thursday of the South Pacific Cup the 30 player squad was selected to take on the Kickstart Flying Boomerangs at 9 am tomorrow (Friday) morning. This initial squad will be reduced further to 25 to compete in the NAB AFL U/16 national championships to be held in Sydney in July. Congratulations to all those who took part in the tournament and especially to those selected in the squad below.

Days 3 and 4 of the AFL South Pacific Cup played out yesterday (Wednesday) and today (Thursday) at the Tony Ireland Stadium in Townsville. The Papua New Guinea Binatangs lived up to pre tournament favouratism and completed an unbeaten run through the tournament to take out the title. Unbeaten by a whisker though after the draw against Oceania on Tuesday.

Upon the completion of the last match on Thursday, the 30 player squad was selected to take on the Kickstart Flying Boomerangs at 9 am tomorrow (Friday) morning. This initial squad will be reduced further to 25 to compete in the NAB AFL U/16 national championships to be held in Sydney in July. See separate article for the squad.

Sydney born Mick Byrne's playing past in Aussie Rules helps him fit neatly into the Rugby Union Super 15’s Blues co-coaching jigsaw. Like many Sydney youngsters Mick Byrne began his sporting life on the league field. Then one of his schoolmates persuaded him to bring his teenage 2m frame to Aussie Rules training.

"I really liked it because of the freedom of running and the kicking that was involved," Byrne said. So in his last year at school, Byrne ended up playing rugby on Thursday, Aussie Rules on Saturday and Rugby League on Sunday.

He made an Aussie Rules rep side as a ruckman and centre half forward and signed a contract as an interstate player and headed off to Melbourne. Byrne went to the Melbourne Demons, subsequently Hawthorn where he won a Grand Final winner's medal, and the Sydney Swans in a 167 game career over a 13-year career.

The 2013 AFL season moves on to Round 3 this week.   The international broadcast schedule can be seen below. All times are correct at the time of publishing and WFN takes no responsibility for changes to the schedule.

Tuesday was day 2 of the AFL South Pacific Cup tournament at Tony Ireland Stadium in Townsville (QLD); pitting PNG, NZ and the Oceania Squads against each other. The game on Tuesday saw PNG play Oceania in an extremely close encounter that finished in a draw. The polish of the PNG side was evident all day but the spirited work ethic of the Oceania side pressured PNG into mistakes and Oceania were good enough to capitalize. Observers rating this as the game of the carnival so far.

Players representing the South Pacific in the curtain raiser against the NZ Hawks will participate in an AFL Combine on Wednesday 23rd April. AFL Combines are underpinned by an exciting testing format that provides participants with the opportunity to compete in a number of skills and athletic testing.

Each of the events within the programme has a focus on fun and looks to provide those involved with motivation to improve themselves in varying facets of skill and fitness.

A variety of talent scouts will watch carefully as the South Pacific players are put through their paces.

The first ever AFL New Zealand High Performance awards will be held on April 24th at Macs Function Centre in Wellington on the eve of the ANZAC Day Clash between the Sydney Swans and St Kilda.

The awards night is an annual celebration of the performance and efforts of those involved in New Zealand representative teams as well as recognizing the success of those with New Zealand heritage in the sport of AFL.

With the new AFL South Pacific and Oceania junior talent pathway structure now seeing first the Oceania tournament held last December (for Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomons, Fiji and Nauru) ; and the next step being the South Pacific Cup where the Oceania combine takes on the regional powers of PNG and NZ; it is a watershed moment now that the inaugural South Pacific Cup has kicked off on Monday at the Tony Ireland Stadium in Townsville

Monday (April 8): Day 1 started today with 3 terrific games of football between PNG, NZ & Oceania (Tonga, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Fiji, Nauru). PNG were in control of both of their games and look like the team to beat!

The AFL Europe have posted highlight videos from each quarter of the match between the European Legion and the AIS-AFL Academy squad. Read on to see each clip.

The AFL Europe have released their official match report from the AIS-AFL Academy vs European Legion match played in England on Saturday.

The Europeans held with the Australians fairly well in the first quarter, kicking 2 goals and only being 14 points down at the first change. From there, the AIS-AFL pulled away, running out 86-point victors. Given that the majority of the AIS-AFL squad will go onto play in the AFL, the large margin in unsurprising, though international footy fans will note that the Europeans have gotten a little closer each year.

In the curtain-raiser, the GB Bulldogs had a strong victory over the Irish Warriors.

Read on for the official report, courtesy of AFL Europe.