World Footy News

The last two years haven't been too kind to Australian football in North East England. The area was once a hotbed of the sport in the UK, with a strong, five-team league. However, by 2011 it had become a barren wasteland in footy terms, with all clubs bar one having folded due to a combination of factors including waining interest, lack of facilities and funding. The one remaining team, Newcastle Centurions, is currently on hiatus, meaning no football has been played in the North East since 2010.

This is soon to change with the formation of the Tyne-Tees Tigers, an amalgamation of the now defunct clubs Gateshead, Durham, Middlesborough & Hartlepool. The club is based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, but represents the whole North East region and as such draws players from Northumberland, Tyneside, Wearside and Teeside. A lot of work has been done over the past few months to get things up and running and the first training session will take place on Tuesday 22nd May.

The club won't be playing competitive football in 2012 as the AFL England leagues have all already begun their seasons. The short-term goal for the Tigers is to host a round of the AFL England Central/North West (C/NW) season on July 14th. In that round the Tyne-Tees club will compete in a social game against a team made up of C/NW players. The club's long-term goal is to join the C/NW league as a competitive team in 2013.

 With the selection of Tommy Walsh by the Sydney Swans this week a new Irishman comes into the AFL fold.  And along with the selection of in form Pearce Hanley, Zach Tuohy and Marty Clarke on Thursday night, Niall McKeever was named on an extended bench for the Lions match against GWS this weekend.  

AFL Media Release

The AFL is pleased to announce a partnership with Cadbury which launches the AFL’s official alternative version of the game – Cadbury AFL 9s.

To showcase the new touch version of AFL, an exhibition Cadbury AFL 9s match will be played on football’s biggest stage, the MCG tonight, Friday, May 18.

 The Cadbury Super Team will take on the Coles All Stars during half-time of the blockbuster between Collingwood and Geelong.

Captaining the Cadbury Super Team will be Alex Davis, partner of Collingwood star Scott Pendlebury and captaining the Coles All Stars will be Geelong Premiership captain Cameron Ling. 

Andrew Dillon, AFL General Manager of Game Development said Cadbury AFL 9s is easy to play, less physically demanding and offers a game where participation, enjoyment and safety are a priority. 

“Cadbury AFL 9s is a central part of our growth strategy that aims to have one million participants playing the game by 2016".

This Saturday sees a big day of footy in Philadelphia.  EAFL rivals Florida, New York and the Baltimore/Washington Eagles will all be in town to take part.  And following on from their successful tour to Chicago last year, the Onatario Australian Football League will again send a team across the border to compete during a bye weekend in their own league.  There will also be a Reserves and a Women's match on the day.

The 2012 Philly Footy Festival as it is known will be played at the Hawk's home ground,  FDR Park.   The match schedule is as follows: 

This audio is from a few weeks ago but we thought we'd give it a run during the AFL's Indigenous Round.

Unfortunately the video that showed the book and the story has been removed from the site.

The annual Anzac Day Match of the Philippine AFL was a great success with eight new players turning out for the match, some with experience but also several keen to learn and play footy.

The game was played at the Nomads Sports Club, played at 10-a-side as there were enough players for interchanges, with Eurekas running out victors over ther Dingoes 15.11 (101) to 4.4 (28). The weather was "a stinker" it being hot and dry at this time of the year in Manila, so the very respectable crowd of spectators made good use of the bar. 

Group Captain Craig White, Royal Australian Air Force, who presented the Anzac Medal to Travis Bull, a new recruit from Australia, as the player who best typifies the Anzac Spirit, also conducted the Anzac Ceremony. He also unexpectedly presented all players and officials with a medallion to commemorate the day's events. This gesture was very much appreciated by all.

Preparations for the 2012 Manila Cup are reported to be well in hand with six teams contesting the event again this year. There are two Philippine teams as last year, the Philippine Eagles and the Alabang Crows, with the visitors being Hong Kong Dragons, Malaysian Warriors, Jakarta Bintangs and Singapore Wombats, the tournament expected to be played at 12-a-side this year.

This year the tournament will be played at the Nomads Sports Club, the new 'headquarters' of the PAFL, with matches starting at 8.30am and finishing around 6.00pm but late matches can be played under lights if need be.

This coming weekend on 19th May 2012 for the first time students from the International School Of Manila will play a curtain raiser to the Eurekas v Dingoes match. As part of their curriculum the students have been studying and training at Australian Football. The match will start at 1.00pm and all involved at the league are hopeful that this game is just the beginning of more to come.

Thanks to Peter Stone for assistance with this story.

The South Pacific squad has been finalised after the Oceania Talent Combine held in New Zealand back in April, along with the efforts of the combined PNG/Nauru side during the recent QLD state championships.

The reigning Premiers of the Japan AFL, the Osaka Dingoes, one of only two non-Tokyo based clubs in Japan (Nagoya Redbacks being the other) currently have around twenty players.  About fifty percent are Japanese, the rest ex-pat Aussies except for one American and a Frenchman.

Osaka, third most populous city in Japan, after Tokyo and Yokohama is connected to many other major cities such as Kyoto, Nagoya, Yokohama and Tokyo (over 400 kilometres distance) to the east, and Kobe, Okayama, Hiroshima, Kitakyushu and Fukuoka to the west by the famous Shinkansen (bullet) train. All Dingoes away games involve long journeys that are costly for these amateur players, so dedication and passion to play footy is not in short supply.

After the debut of Fiji 9s in March last year; the 2012 version kicked off on Friday May 4 at Albert Park with 5 teams and over 60 players turning out.

AFL Fiji reporting that the 5 teams were the Nausori Delta Blues, the Nauluvatu Eagles, the Raiwaqa Bulldogs, the City Swans and the Cunningham Red Hills.

The USAFL has revealed today on their website that they will have two representatives on the World XVIII team in the Australian Under16 Championships in Sydney this July. 

Brad Heicklen (pictured left) is perhaps not such a big suprise as it was revealed that he would be in the squad back in February.  Heicklin has been working for a number of years on punting and discovered footy through ESPN and subsequently hooked up with the Beachside Sharks in California.  This year he has been playing as an onballer with the club in the SCAFL and the 14 year old shows great promise.  His World XVIII audition tape can be seen below.

The 2012 Indigenous Round will celebrate Land and Country.  The launch in Brisbane was attended by AFL Community Engagement Manager Jason Mifsud, Murri elder Aunty Carol Currie, students from the Murri School and players Ashley McGrath (Brisbane Lions) and Jarrod Harbrow (Gold Coast SUNS).

Jason Mifsud said country is central to Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islanders.  “While players play for their jumper, they represent and acknowledge their land, communities and people.  Land defines and inspires players on and off the field. This week is an opportunity for the players to share their stories about their country.

Perhaps it was the rapid debuts of Marty Clarke for Collingwood and Michael Quinn for Essendon that set the expectations high for Irish recruits.  They made their AFL debuts after being at their clubs only months after arriving from Ireland. 

But for 24 year old Tommy Walsh it has been a long waiting game as his chance to debut at AFL level never came at St Kilda.  Whether it was a matter of the timing never quite being right, or that Ross Lyon did not have confidence in the Irishman - in the two years at Saint Kilda he was confined to the VFL.