World Footy News

Moving image coverage of the 1909 VFL Grand Final, the earliest known surviving film of Australian Rules football action. In 2009, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of this precious sporting film, the National Film and Sound Archives produced this new digital video master from 35mm film.

Played on Saturday 2 October 1909, Carlton and South Melbourne fought out a tough, low scoring contest at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. South Melbourne, chasing their first premiership in the Victorian Football League (VFL), held off a desperate Carlton, looking to win their fourth consecutive flag. In front of more than 37,000 fans, despite being held goalless in the last quarter, The Bloods triumphed by two points. South Melbourne 4 14 38, Carlton 4 12 36.

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For most followers of footballers with an international pedigree the thoughts through most of 2012 in association with Frankston, a stand-alone club in the modern ‘VFL’ battling it out against both stand-alone AFL reserves sides (Geelong and Collingwood) and a host of AFL aligned VFL feeder clubs, the thoughts were mainly around Khan Haretuku. Out of nowhere came Chamberlin "Patrick" Ndongo with a mighty story that will lead who knows where.

The Sydney Swans this week announced the following list changes, following the post season review period.  

Primary list players Jarred Moore and Mark Seaby have been delisted, along with rookie list players Eugene Kruger, Jack Lynch and Dylan McNeil.  

South African born Eugene Kruger was on the rookie list and did not play any senior games with the Swans in his time at the club.

 

The video below if from Australia's ABC News - giving their take on the internationals at the Draft Combine.

Gideon Simon has become the first player who has learnt and played Australian rules football in another country to make it through the development pathway onto an AFL rookie list. Richmond yesterday announced that young PNG star who has been on an International Scholarship with the club will be officially listed with the Tigers in the Rookie draft this year as an International Rookie. The announcement came at the end of the AFL Draft combine in Melbourne where Simon tested well.

Others such as Mike Pyke, Shae McNamara and the now long list of Irish code crossers all came from other countries but did not play Aussie rules in their home country.

This is a huge vindication of the development pathway that has been developed in PNG, and hopefully will give hope to those elsewhere around the world to develop the game in their own corners of the globe. It is also a giant pat on the back to all that have been involved for many years in footy in PNG to bring the game there back from the brink.

Simon has been at the club for the latter part of this season, playing with Richmond's affilliate club Coburg (this affilliaton will not continue in 2012) in the Development League of the VFL.

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Andrew Cadzow speaks to ABC Radio Australia about the Internationals at the Draft Combine in Melbourne and Yoshi Harris, Brendan Beno and Gideon Simon are questioned in the studio.

Thanks to Leiha Shrubsall for contributing this match write up.

Final score: Irish Banshees 13.14 (98) to European Crusaders 8.8 (52)

 The Irish Banshees attended their third consecutive Euro Cup last weekend taking with it a team of mostly new players, some of them having never played a match previously. The European Crusaders were a team made up of French, Scottish, Spanish and English players. The Irish knew it was going to be a tight contest from word go having played alongside the Scottish girls earlier in the year at the Haggis cup, so they anticipated the match to be a lot tougher this year.

 

Belinda Duante has been named 2012 Football Woman of the Year at the Grand Final Comedy Debate at the Crown Palladium. Duante is a senior executive at Richmond Football Club and is the inaugural director of the Korin Gamadji Institute, which provides leadership development, education and training to young Indigenous men and women. She also had a key role in the establishment and development of AFL SportsReady’s National Indigenous Programme and has helped in the development of the Career Oriented Participation in Sport program for first-year AFL players, which now incorporates specific Indigenous considerations.

Richmond CEO Brendon Gale described Duante an outstanding contributor to the Richmond Football Club.
“As a proud Wotjoboluk woman, Belinda has a wonderful understanding of the role football can play in the lives of young Indigenous Australians and she continually advocates for them to stay in the game at all levels,” he said.

Our thanks to Lee for contributing his coverage of the tournament which also featured in The Herald Sun newspaper.

Ireland Warriors won their second AFL Europe Euro Cup with a stunning come-from-behind one-point win over Denmark Vikings in Edinburgh on Saturday.

In what AFL Europe general manager Ben MacCormack described as the “best game of Aussie Rules I’ve seen played in Europe”, Ireland trailed the Danes by 11 points with a minute to go.

Then, almost simultaneously, Denmark momentarily dropped its guard, allowing Ireland pounce on the opportunity and blast home two quick goals just seconds from the final siren and win 5.0 (30) to 4.5 (29).

Ireland’s Muiris Bartley was responsible for kicking the match-winning goal.

Former Melbourne Demon Glenn Lovett, now vice-chairman of AFL Europe, awarded medals post-match.

Remarkably, Saturday’s was the second one-point result in Europe in a month after North London Lions beat Wandsworth Demons in a nail-biting AFL London grand final in August.

Ireland remain the leaders in Europe's Australian rules football scene, having successfully taking out both the men's and women's titles at last weekend's Euro Cup.

In the men's final, the Irish Warriors edged out an inaccurate Denmark by a solitary point, 5.0 (30) to the Vikings' 4.5 (29).

The final of the women's division saw the Irish Banshees defeated the European Crusaders 13.14 (92) to 8.8 (56).

Full scores from the tournament available here, a full report is to come.

When the final siren sounded yesterday afternoon, one of the more interesting efforts to circumvent the AFL draft and develop talent outside of the primary channels had a milestone moment of vindication.  Mike Pyke's journey to the AFL is now pretty well known - in Australia.  What has also happened over the last week has been a recognition of his efforts 'back home' in Canada.  And with yesterdays win - we now see the file photos of Pyke from the Canadian national Rugby side during the 2007 RUWC replaced with Mike Pyke, Swans player, and a premiership cup.