World Footy News

The AFL has announced that it is to partner with Breast Cancer Network Australia to present Field of Women 2013. BCNA is an Australian charity representing women (and men) affected by breast cancer, helping to ensure that those diagnosed, and their families, get the very best treatment and support possible.

The Field of Women brings the statistics of breast cancer to life in a meaningful and visually powerful way, highlighting the personal impact of the disease for so many women across Australia and of course around the world. The event will be held in Sydney on August 10, prior to the Round 20 Sydney Swans v Collingwood match at ANZ Stadium. 15,000 people wearing pink ponchos and 125 in blue, will stand together on the field in the shape of BCNA's Pink Lady. The numbers represent the number of women and men estimated to be diagnosed with breast cancer this year.

The USAFL have launched a new advertising campaign to promote the game and recruit players to their competition. The 30-second clip will run twice during the broadcast of AFL matches on the Fox Soccer PLUS each week as well as other times during the match day.

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Roger Scott, president of AFL Russia, is confident that the nation’s Australian Rules football ambitions will once again be on the rise in 2013. Just as soon as the current European winter releases its icy grip. In a story being played out across the continent, snow and ice are making footy practice a little problematic.

"The new season kicked off on Friday, March 8th with a practice match in the snow. The first official training should be this Sunday, but we’ve had one of the snowiest winters in history, and it doesn’t look like melting any time soon, so we could be delayed," explains Roger.

Whilst this scenario might suggest a slow start to the year, Roger is confident that things will pick up from here. “I’m helping organize the festival of Australian Culture in Moscow for July this year. It’ll be the first time such an event has been put on here. It should be a huge occasion."

"We’re hoping to play a practice match against a European or any foreign team as one of the main events for the festival, so we’re trying to find a team, whether it be local European, European representative or whoever, who’s ready to come! We’re also going to be running demonstrations, selling merchandise and showing games there." Now, there’s an invitation for someone to run with!

Two stories have recently been in the New Zealand news celebrating junior talent identification and development.

Firstly, this weekend sees a National U 16 tournament to be held in Wellington. Usually such events are run as province against province and seem the natural apex tournament as a result of local area Hawks Cup events. This is not the case with this weekend’s event.

Rather, the cream of New Zealand’s under 16 talent, identified by AFLNZ talent scouts, have been organised into regional teams to contest this inaugural event. The three teams are: North Suns, Metro Eagles and Central Giants.

From this event, a New Zealand under 16 side will be chosen to compete in the South Pacific tournament involving Papua New Guinea and an Oceania team in Townsville, Queensland, Australia this April. From there, players can be selected to play for the South Pacific team to compete in the Australian Under 16 Championship.

The Australian Football League will unite with the Australian Federal Police for the sixth annual Unity Cup to be held in Melbourne on March 24.

Representing the diversity of our game, Australia Post AFL multicultural ambassadors David Rodan (Fijian) and Majak Daw (Sudanese) will hold a leadership session during the multicultural carnival which will take place at JJ Holland Park in Kensington.

For the average footy follower, like me, Andorra is not a place that is frequently visited.  But a quick wander through an internet image search will unearth an incredible array of pictures which show this principality to be among the most beautiful places in the world.

The sixth smallest nation in Europe, Andorra is bordered by Spain and France in the Pyrenees Mountains. More importantly to readers is the prediction by Douglas Pate that Andorran Aussie Rules will be back in 2013 with a number of goals in mind…and not just six pointers.

Douglas Pate is already well known in international Australian Rules football circles for his work in developing Andorran footy, as well as footy in Catalonia in Spain. He is also a past president of the Danish Australian Football League back in 1995. Douglas admits that Andorra’s hiatus from the international scene in recent times coincides with his own pursuit of personal priorities. But he says “this year we [will] reactivate with the goal to go to the European Championships in Bordeaux”.

On March 10 the Masala Football Club had it's first outing at Gosch's Paddock in Richmond. In their kit donated by the Richmond Football Club they took on Team Africa on a very hot day. While both sides were fairly well matched skill wise, the superior numbers of the Africans was a big advantage in the heat and they ran out winners by about ten goals.

 

 

The following transcript is AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou's speech delivered tonight in Melbourne to launch the 2013 AFL season.

Tonight marks the tenth occasion I have been privileged to launch the season as Chief Executive of the AFL. This season also marks the tenth anniversary of the appointment of our chairman, Mike Fitzpatrick to the AFL Commission.

Ten is an important number, not just a milestone, but a fork in the road that allows for reflection, for analysis and for anticipation. Events over the past few months have made that audit trail even more important.

The 2013 AFL season gets underway this week with Round 1 split over two weeks. The first match is on Friday night Australian time between the Adelaide Football Club and the Essendon Football Club. The schedule can be seen below.

One key indicator for whether AFL football games will continue to be played in Wellington will be the attendance at the Anzac Day game between the Sydney Swans and St Kilda.

The 3 pre-season games played between 1998-2001 had attendances within the range of 8,000 - 12,000 people. When reflecting on some of the attendances in the AFL last year this probably doesn't compare too badly, at times.

It has been reported that major hotels in Wellington are already full with 2 night minimum stays being required in some cases over the Anzac Day break. Certainly trying to book an airfare to Wellington late last month meant this correspondent had to travel for over 6 hours to get there via Sydney at rather an inflated cost!

However all this bodes extremely well with the Wellington Stadium seating over 30,000 and some predicting a sell out with the influx of international visitors as well as the locals keen to attend the game.

Certainly it is an historic occasion for the AFL and the code in general and those interested in AFL being played internationally can only hope it is a massive success.

For more see Full houses for Anzac AFL clash

As a follow up from a previous story about the prospect of the Central Australian Redtails joining the NTFL Premier League for the 2013/4 season, the AFLNT have released the following press release asking for more information. This is not necessarily a negative development. It may also mean that the Redtails have met criteria to date and now more boxes need to be ticked.

Northern Territory Football League traditional powerhouse, St Mary’s have won this season’s premiership with a come from behind 31 point victory over the Tiwi Bombers.

The premiership is the 29th for the Darwin club, putting it 6 flags clear of their nearest rivals the Darwin Buffaloes. What makes this more remarkable is that the club only entered the league in 1952. This year marked their 60th anniversary, and this premiership makes it a mathematically amazing average of almost one premiership every two years.

This remarkable effort is easier to understand when their list of notable players includes Maurice Rioli, Michael Long, Peter Burgoyne, Raphael and Xavier Clarke, Scott Chisholm, Ronnie Burns, Austin Wonaeamirri and currently Cyril Rioli.