World Footy News

Last week’s Rookie draft saw the listing of two Irishmen. But also we saw some others with exotic heritage listed with AFL clubs, such as Tasmanian born Gold Coast recruit Aaron Hall’s whose mother is Fijian.

Richmond are putting together a highly varied multicultural mix.  Joining their Irish recruit John Heslin (and PNG scholarship listed players) are Ben Darrou whose father was born in Morrocco and Samoan Piva Wright (see Youtube video of Piva on TAC future stars below).

The ladies from Champagne Football interview some of the internationals at the IC11 closing Gala Event in Melbourne.

Follow the adventures of the Irish Australian Rules Football teams in Australia for the AFL International Cup 2011.  This youtube slideshow created by Irish blogger Peter Ross follows the Irish teams' time in Australia from the opening ceremony to their post game Grand Final celebrations in the MCG.  Peter's wife, Melbourne born and bred Dr. Tammy Verlaan-Ross was the team Chiropractor. 

Her participation was supported by the Chiropractic Association of Ireland, the official healthcare provider of the Irish team. Ireland's men (the Warriors) defeated reigning champions Papua New Guinea to win the Cup for the second time in their history and the women (the Banshees) also won, defeating Canada in the first ever women's Grand Final. 

Like a number of other fledgling AFL national programs, the AFL Vanuatu program runs a facebook page. And today a pretty special review was posted of the efforts and experience of the Volcanoes in becoming the first national AFL team from Vanuatu.

Read the full article here.

With the pre-tournament favourite and reigning title holder PNG prevented from defending their title after what was a shock loss to Tonga in the downpour of Thursday afternoon; the New Zealand Hawks more accurate finishing provided them a solid 21 pt win over Nauru in the Grand Final of the AFL Youth Oceania Cup.

This year's International Cup for the first time was broken into two divisions. The video below contains the full match between the Fiji Tribe and the French Coqs.

Result from the Flying Boomerangs v Under-18 South Pacific match played today at Albert Park, Suva, Fiji. 

After last years surprise win by the South Pacific over the Boomerangs in Tonga, this years rematch has seen the  Flying Boomerangs 10.12 (72) exacting revenge over the Under-18 South Pacific 3.4 (22).

Earlier this year this Russian English-language news show introduced Roger Scott and his efforts to kick start footy in Russia.

Results from the 2011 Youth AFL Oceania Cup matches played today at Albert Park in Suva, Fiji.

below - wet weather footy as PNG take on the Tonga All-Stars.

Wellington had a tough Aussie rules season this year, resulting in a season of struggle after struggle. The North City Demons were unable to field a team this season, leaving a three team competition. Round robins were supposed to be played each weekend over 6 weeks before culminating in a December final. Unfortunately the Wellington City Saints Saints defaulted multiple games throughout the season with the Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs also struggling on a couple of weekends.

Throughout the season clubs catered for Demons players wanting a game, as were any available players whose team defaulted. This continued even on Grand Final day, with six players from the Saints and Demons playing in the final.

There are two schools of thought with this from my experience, allow them to play and keep them passionate so that they don’t walk away from the sport and come back to rebuild their Clubs next year, or cut them off from playing and ensure that the teams who do the right thing and turn up with a team aren’t compromised in who takes the field in their jumper. A tricky quandary but I believe Wellington took the right approach here.

During the year there were a number of administrative changes across the league, including new Club Presidents for both the Saints and the Bulldogs. The addition of these new and enthusiastic participants to the League administration hopefully sets a solid foundation for the league moving forward.