World Footy News

With no MCG, Aami Stadium or even a Norwood Oval to call their own, AFL Japan's Top League play matches on rented rugby grounds and public parks as do most footy leagues and clubs outside Australia.

The amateur nature of the international footy community has most leagues and clubs playing and/or training on borrowed school or university sports grounds, public parks or any flat* (or not so flat) paddock or river bank they can find.

However, AFL Japan has taken an almost unprecedented step in international footy by opening its own office and shopfront in Tokyo. Opened at the start of 2013 the AFL Japan Office is where all the day-to-day business of AFL Japan takes place, and storage of merchandise and equipment.

Open 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday, the office is a physical presence for Australian Football fans in Japan where the public (curious or committed) can walk in and purchase a wide range of AFL Japan and/or Aussie Football merchandise eg. Guernseys, books, DVDs and “Sherrins” or have queries about Japan Footy or AFL answered.

The office is situated at 27-9-101 Denenchoufu-Honcho Oota-Ku, Tokyo. A short 3min walk from Numabe Station, Tokyo Tamagawa Line.

Phone 03-4520-9930.

For more (in Japanese), visit http://www.jafl.org/topics_detail1/id=276.

*Vanuatu AFL have their own full size oval but crab holes have to be filled in before each day's play.

International football will hit Cairns next month when the PNG Binatangs Under 16 team arrives en route to the South Pacific Cup in Townsville.

As part of the lead up to their bigger mission in Townsville, the Papua New Guinea team has accepted the challenge of playing a combined U16/U18 team from Pyramid Power Junior AFL club in Gordonvale, 25 kilometres south of Cairns.

Pyramid Power is one of the newest clubs in the AFL Cairns Juniors, but has already been active in the world of international Australian Rules football. Their “Brother Club” project has seen them interact with clubs overseas, so this opportunity is an extension of their international dealings.

Last weekend a footy match was played under grey skies in Cork, Ireland. The event featured the Leeside Lions. That was nothing new or unexpected, though very welcome. It also, however, featured the UCC Bombers. That was something new…and a breath of fresh air for Australian Rules football as another new club took to the international stage.

The game marked the first ever match for the newest team on the Irish landscape, and no matter how it is viewed, the day was a success for the UCC crew.

Leeside Lions won the day on the scoreboard with the final score being 10.16 (76) to UCC Bombers 4.5 (29). But in every other way UCC just racked up victory after victory. Every box ticked in the lead up to the game culminated in the ultimate win when the team ran on to the field.

AFL Media Release.

The AFL today announced the finalisation of international broadcast rights into New Zealand for the 2013 Toyota AFL Premiership Season that will see unprecedented television coverage of the code across the Tasman Sea. 

Sommet Sports and SKY Television will showcase AFL content throughout the year with increased coverage across the Premiership Season, Finals Series, Grand Final and weekly highlights program.  Both networks will broadcast the Anzac Day match, St Kilda v Sydney Swans at Westpac Stadium, live nationally from 7.30pm local time – in what will be a significant event for the code.

The second official AFL USA combine will be moved up to April this year. Last year's combine in LA took place at the end of August and left a short space of time between the combine and the time for the graduates of the combine to come to the Australian national combine held in Melbourne in the first week of October. This year's earlier time will allow those given the opportunity to come to Australia in October to brush up on the game and their skills.

As usual the international athletes are available for clubs to sign up on an international scholarship immediately rather than wait until the athlete goes throught the Australian combine if they like what they see in April. As with last year there is expected to be college athletes (and recently graduated) from baskeball, gridiron and soccer put through their paces in LA once again.

Former Seattle University basketballer Eric Wallace was the ultimate success story of last year's combine being given an International rookie spot with North Melbourne. Wallace features in this year's updated recruitment video on Youtube that can be seen below. While most of the promo is the same content as last year Wallace has replace the delisted Shae McNamara as the US face of the combine video.

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In our continuing series on the future of footy in Asia we look at what is probably the second biggest league in the Asian region, behind only Japan's TLeague (and perhaps the in-development East Asian AFL).

The Lantau Lizards have become the sixth team to enter the South China Australian Football League (SCAFL), joining already established teams in Hong Kong, Macau and Guangzhou. Lantau is an island in Hong Kong, bringing the number of Hong Kong based teams in the league to four.

The Lantau Lizards, along with the Hong Kong Reds and Hong Kong Blues, play under the flag of the Hong Kong Dragons, which are the reigning Asian Champs, while the fourth team from Hong Kong, Hong Kong Gaelic, plays in the SCAFL independently. The Guangzhou Scorpions and Macau Lightning make up the remainder of the league.

The league is currently played weekly with Guangzhou, Macau and Hong Kong alternating between hosting entire rounds to make it easier to afford ground costs and umpires. The matches are played similar to the first round of the NAB Cup, with games having two 20-minute halves and each team playing two matches, totaling six matches for the day.

While 9 aside footy has been a crucial vehicle for Australian Football on the international front (where availability of grounds are limited and regular local comps use a more achievable team size), in Australia it’s been far less well recognised. For a time the AFL has dabbled with ‘Rec Footy’; and last year re-launched it as ‘Cadbury 9s’ (or AFL 9s). For regular followers of the game the notion of the game's ‘untouchables’ were put forward a couple of years back and people were challenged to consider what was ‘untouchable’ about the game.

An oval field?

18 aside? Or the 16 of the old VFA for a period? This discussion has been had again in recent days on Melbourne radio (SEN in particular) due in no small part to the role of the rules committee and Kevin Bartlett. What are the non-negotiable’s? There's now talk of a 'charter' as reported last Friday (by Patrick Smith - a regular guest of Bartlett on SEN) - see Visionary charter to manage evolving changes to AFL rules.

During the 2012/13 season the AFLNT added the Alice Springs-based Central Australian Redtails to the Northern Territory Premier League, along with a further Darwin club in the Banks Bulldogs.

Each played four games as an experiment to assess whether or not the club would ultimately survive in the highest level of the NTFL competition.

The Central Australian team performed above expectations on the field, winning three of its four games, including a win against current flag favourites, St Mary’s.

The following press release from the AFLNT discusses the direction both the league and the club will now take to determine whether or not the Central Australian Redtails can be admitted to the NTFL Premier League.

Late last year the AFLNT were proud to recognise the record growth of the game of Australian Rules football across a range of areas. That growth has now translated into an exciting season which is now culminating with the 2012-13 finals series. It was a season which expected and got huge growth, and this growth has delivered both on and off the field.

This coming weekend will see last year's premiers, the Tiwi Bombers, take on Wanderers for a place in the NTFL Premier League Grand Final.

Last week it was St Mary’s who booked the first place in the Grand Final by giving out a hiding to the Tiwi Bombers to the tune of 51 points in the Second Semi Final. Wanderers upset Southern Districts by an even 100 points to get to the Preliminary Final.

St Mary’s await the winner of the Tiwi v Wanderers clash, and are the overwhelming favourite to take this year's flag.

The AFL have a new ad campaign out for the 2013 season and it features viewers around the world checking out what our game has to offer - obviously we like this concept!

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AFL Europe have announced that Axios Systems have signed on for 3 years as the naming rights sponsor of the Euro Cup, with the upcoming edition in Bordeaux now officially known as the 2013 Axios Euro Cup.

Axios Systems delivers on-premise and SaaS Service Desk and IT Service Management (ITSM) software to customers across the globe. They combine software, consulting and training to implement ITSM strategies tailored to meet the needs of their customers.

The AFL Europe encourage any company needing such services to get in touch with Axios via axiossystems.com and support a company that supports Australian Rules Football in Europe.

They would also like to publicly thank Andros Symeonides (Senior VP Business Development) and Ranald Haig who both recently played for Iceland in the 2012 Euro Cup and have been instrumental in securing this support for the development Australian Football in Europe.

The official logo for the 2013 Axios Euro Cup is shown at left, designed by European footy stalwart Kolja Koracak from Croatia and his company Locker Room 51 Sports Branding Studio. His work can be found at lockerroom51.com.

“I took three boys into Darwin to play representative footy in November 2012 and we went food shopping together. I asked one of the boys to go and get me a few things from the shopping list and they had never heard of it before."

"When I asked what they eat for breakfast, the reply was ‘left over turtle or dugong’. Unfortunately we were unable to find that in Coles. It is great to see that the traditional food gathering still takes place in these areas such as fishing and hunting. If we can help them [indigenous people from Groote Eylandt] understand our culture then we will be able to achieve so many more goals.”

This recollection from Shawn Ford, the AFL Regional Development Manager for Groote Eylandt, says a great deal about the differences that still exist in many ways of life in remote parts of Australia. Aspects of life that many take for granted can be viewed differently by others.