World Footy News

Head Coach Kevin Sheedy will visit Elcho Island off the coast of Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory tomorrow to launch a new partnership between the Giantsand the Galiwin'ku community. Sheedy, a passionate advocate of Indigenous Australia, will meet members of the community and attend a local football match.

Galiwin'ku, about 520 kilometres from Darwin, is the largest community on Elcho Island and the second largest Aboriginal community in the Northern Territory with a population of 2290 people. It was the inspiration for the song 'My Island Home', originally performed by the Warumpi Band, and later also performed by Christine Anu. It is also home to the blind Aboriginal folk singer Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu.

AFL South Africa has named the South Africa (Geminder Youth Academy) Squad To Play Against Australia Flying Boomerangs U/17 - on the 28th January and 1st February 2013.  This is an U/18 Squad topped up with 5 players U/20 years.

4. Tshepiso Mogapi

As previously reported, The Flying Boomerangs are once again headed for a tour of South Africa.  The concept is a personal development and leadership program for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander young men aged 14 -15 years-old, supported by the Coles AFL Indigenous Program.

Selected from the 2012 AFL KickStart Under-15 Championships, the Flying Boomerangs squad of 25 players will play two matches against South African teams in Potchefstroom and Durban, coached by former St Kilda player Raphael Clarke.

The Boomerangs will also conduct a footyWILD clinic in Cape Town township, visit Table Mountain and Robben Island where former South Africa President Nelson Mandela was imprisoned in 1964 for 18 years before being moved to another prison.

AFL National Community Engagement Manager Jason Mifsud and AFL Indigenous Programs Coordinator Xavier Clarke are attending the tour.

Itinerary and squad listed below:
 

The Flying Boomerangs are holding true to their name and returning to South Africa for the fourth time later this month.

“It’s always a great opportunity for our town, Potchefstroom to host overseas visitors and most important for kids who are involved in our program throughout the year to come and witness the exciting game playing live. Our South Africa Lions players to get more experience and help prepare for the International Cup in 2014, which I hope to be part of once more,”  said Sipho Magongo, footyWILD Development Coordinator.

For a bit of fun take a look at the Youtube video put together by two Australian girls kicking the footy around the world.  A similar idea has been mooted before as a promo video for the International Cup with players from each country kicking the footy around the world, but is yet to happen.

[youtube:ECbeHmpXQGM]

North Melbourne International rookie Eric Wallace is currently in Tasmania where the club is in training for the upcoming 2013 AFL season. He spoke to SEN Radio in Melbourne yesterday morning about his journey so far. He will today front the media at a press call in Tasmania. The interview can be heard in the Youtube clip below.

[youtube:GwnVogzZ3sE]

You can follow Eric's Blog HERE.

Back in 2009 we quoted AFL South Africa data showing 17,000 participants in Australian football in that country.  But at the time the body had just undergone major expansion to cover four provinces and was switching instead to a consolidation mode to ensure the program was sustainable.  Although completely understandable it was still probably not what international footy fans wanted to hear, always keen to see numbers growing rapidly.

It seems that 2012 was a period of expansion again with numbers up to 20,000.  And AFL South Africa National Participation Manager July Machethe (pictured) has told worldfootynews.com that the aim by 2016 is 30,000 participants.  Note that this includes the all-important umpires and school based mass participation programs.  Machethe has provided a breakdown of the 2012 numbers into different categories, as shown below.

Another area of interest is tracking senior footy and club development.  In terms of developing an adult footprint and really entrenching the game then long term that will be key.  We also saw back in 2009 how quickly players developed when exposed to regular football in Western Cape when a six team league was run and the province suddenly lept to national champion status.  Machethe comments on progress so far to establish more opportunities like that.

Further news is that Australian Anthony "Joel" Kelly, AFL South Africa's National Operations Manager for the last 5 years, has moved on with a replacement expected to be announced this month and quite likely to be a South Africa.

Ciaran Kilkenny has followed in the footsteps of fellow Irishman John Heslin (last year) in quitting the AFL just months after coming out from Ireland to join his club. Originally Kilkenny had been a little cat and mouse about whether he would join the Carlton Football Club until late last year when it was revealed he would be joining Hawthorn.

The Hawks took Kilkenny in the draft as an international rookie but it seems that after a very short time Kilkenny has made up his mind that he preferred to be at home in Ireland.

In his statement Kilkenny said "It may seem like a short time to spend in Australia but I have always given absolute commitment to any team in which I was involved and I feel it would be unfair on both Hawthorn and myself to continue in a situation where I am not 100% committed and happy in myself."

The last few months of 2012 had a flurry of good news for international footy such as Mike Pyke's success in the AFL Grand Final and confirmation that in 2013 New Zealand will host the first ever AFL match for premiership points to be staged outside of Australia.

Potentially lost in there was even more significant news.  Or if not "news", then certainly positive noises from the Australian Football League, that suggest their minds are slowly turning towards the possibility of an AFL club being based in New Zealand one day.  For many international footy supporters that would be a dream come true and surely go a long way to entrenching the game across the Tasman, opening the door to Australia one day playing a competitive international in Australian football.

The key comments were reported in several articles such as on Sportal on October 31st titled NZ team AFL's long-term goal, which obviously came about when the AFL's Gillon McLachlan was discussing the 2013 AFL match in Wellington.  Another key thing to note is that in an AFL re-structure McLachlan was recently given the title Deputy CEO, which has been widely interpreted as flagging him as the leading candidate to one day replace current AFL CEO Andrew Demetriou.  Thus McLachlan speaks as someone with a key role to play in the AFL's future (though ultimately the AFL Commission directs the overall vision).

After announcing in late 2012 that they would draft Kurt Heatherley as an international rookie at the end of 2012, AFL club Hawthorn this week have said they will also draft NZ international scholarship holder Shem Tatupu at the end of 2013. Both players would then be contracted to the club until the end of 2016.

Tatupu is currently training with the Hawks in Melbourne. He will continue to train with the club during school holidays for 2013 but will finiish his schooling in NZ, unlike Heatherley who has been at school in Melbourne the last two years.

AFL national talent manager Kevin Sheehan told hawthornfc.com.au "We congratulate Hawthorn on having the initiative to do it, to be the first club to move on this"

"When we introduced the South Pacific into the under-16s championships three years ago we could see there's going to be potential emerge, and these are the first two boys to come through."

More from Fox Sports News below:

Do you remember your first Aussie Rules footy match? I remember mine like it was last week. I was running out onto the ground in my Clayton footy jumper. I was so proud. The club wore Collingwood colours (and being an Essendon supporter, I still have involuntary tremors…even today). It was 1972, I felt ten feet tall and….

Hold on a moment! That statement is not correct. Not even close. Why? Because my selection to wear the purple and gold of the Clayton South Primary School footy team pre-dated club football in black and white by a good twelve months. In fact, I still remember my dad suggesting that if I did well enough in the school team, he would let me play in the local league the following year.

I’m quite sure that many readers of this article might also look back into their pasts and find a connection to school footy at some point. The more I think of it, my school days were responsible for some of my greatest footy moments. My first recorded “speccy” attempt was one. I missed the ball and slid quite gracelessly off the back of my opponent step ladder, winding myself. But it was possibly the highest I ever flew. The captain of my high school team in the late seventies was a certain Chris Mew, who would later become an integral part of one of the greatest Hawthorn squads in history through the 80’s and 90’s. In the same team, however, was one kid who went on to play reserves for Essendon and South Melbourne, and another whose older brother was a part of the inaugural Sydney Swans team in 1982. Through school footy I managed to meet some pretty fine players. Actually, in some ways, school footy in my Victorian upbringing was a bit like a “best of” team, with a cross section of some of the finest local talent attending the same school.
 

Nearly 3 years ago we reported on a story that first appeared on Channel 9's The Footy Show which said that a Turkish-Australian was developing the concept of the Essendon versus Collingwood ANZAC Day blockbuster being staged in Istanbul, Turkey, in 2015 for the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in World War One.

The Age is reporting that the concept is not dead, in fact the man driving it, Ismail Ozsoy, claims to have secured written support from the Turkish government and succeeded in getting major sponsors on board.  Ozsoy is quoted as saying that:

''I don't want to get everyone too excited because if they [AFL] are not excited, there is no point.

''But they [Turkish government and businesses] have said 90 per cent. When it comes through the channels it has come from, and they have given it to me in writing as well, it doesn't matter whether the government goes by 2015, because it has been approved, it has to happen. But, of course, it takes two to tango.''