World Footy News

The Western Bulldogs today launched the Western Front, the Bulldogs’ new membership campaign calling on Members and Fans to get behind the Red, White and Blue in 2012 and beyond.

Today’s launch, held at the iconic Sun Theatre in Yarraville, was centred around the release of an innovative short film that captures the emerging story of the West and its Team.

Stateside Footy presents two more Australian Rules Football matches, played on October 8-9, 2011 at the USAFL Nationals Tournament in Austin, TX. The first half of the show features the Boston Demons "A" team taking on the hometown Austin Crows in a 2x20 Footy match. The second half features a 2x20 Division 2 match between the Demons "A" team and the Chicago United club.

Sunday November 27th saw the very first staging of the 'Nathan Blakey Movember Cup' which pitted Central & North Western League rivals Sheffield, Manchester & Wolverhampton against the newly formed team from Leeds.

Named in honour of a former Mozzie and staged in conjunction with the Movember Foundation, the aim of the day was to raise money and awareness for Men's health as well as showcasing the great game of Aussie Rules.

As the season has well and truly ended, the participating teams saw the tournament as a good stepping stone for next years league, with each side fielding a lot of new players, with many experiencing the game for the first time. Wolves coach Ian Mitchell summed up the pre game feeling perfectly saying his lads were "really looking forward to the cup, it's for a very good cause".

This report courtesy of Jayden Hocking.

Back in August, WFN ran atwo part interview with Dylan Wolfgramm, who happened to be the first captain of the Fijian Youth side at the inaugral Oceania Cup tournament held in Fiji in December 2009. As pointed out, the Wolfgramm family is very prominent in footy in Fiji.  Now it's the turn of young Jack Wolfgramm, as he and his Junior Tribe team mates prepare for international competition starting next week.

December is now a key month on the International Footy calendar.  The reason is the now annual Youth AFL Oceania Cup.  The tournament kicked off in Fiji in 2009 with Tonga perhaps the surprise inaugural victor.  Last year PNG made their debut (after various circumstances conspired against an appearance in 2009) and were comfortable winners as Tonga played hosts. 

VWFL coaching legend Peta Searle has confirmed that she has been offered the assistant coaching position at VFL premier club Port Melbourne.

Searle was described as “ecstatic” following the announcement of the decision, and said her appointment to the role was a statement to the Australian Football world that women were just as capable of coaching in the top levels of the game. She added she was trying to be the best coach she could be, and was not thinking too much about the gender issue: everyone, male and female, had to earn their stripes and respect, and that she believed she had the knowledge and skills to coach men.

The Commission National de Football Australien has announced a French womens team will be launched before 2012, with players training on a regular basis in Paris, Marseille and Bordeaux.

At the moment there are several women who train but don't have the opportunity to play matches; something else the Commission is aiming to overcome. Anzac Day 2012 is being targetted for a tournament.

For more information visit the French Womens Football Facebook page (in French).

We recently reported that Ireland's Michael Finn had achieved a remarkable series of successes in 2011, winning the International Cup with his country, again making the World Team named from the tournament, and taking home the Frank Rosbrook Medal for the best & fairest player in Division 1 in Victoria's Northern Football League, playing for Heidelberg.

Just to add another accolade to round out the year Finn has comfortably won Heidelberg's best and fairest, polling 121 votes with the runner up Josh Houlihan getting 72 votes.

Every bit as important amongst the personal awards was winning the his club's MVP as voted by his teammates, an award that aims to recognise the club's most valuable player in the eyes of the playing group.

worldfootynews.com spoke with Finn and started by asking about the difficulties of juggling club and country commitments.
 

The AFL had a number of its deadlines today, Tuesday November 29, in regard to the rules relating to club lists.  The deadline for all categories was 2pm today.

Unfortunately there are no surprises this year with international recruits from out of the blue.  From an  international perspective we take particular interest in the following two list deadline categories.

Unlike most AFL drafts where all the talk is about who will get the best young talent and who will go at number 1, this year with GWS Giants holding all the aces much of the focus was on whether ex-Carlton Irish-Fijian-Australian Setanta O'hAilpin would find a new home.  Reportedly a cheer went around the room when GWS took Setanta at pick 79.

The media was quick to interview the passionate player, who at 199cm and 98kg is expected to help "protect" the young players in the Giants' first AFL season.  It also seems that some are just discovering that this particular Irishman was actually born in Bankstown, near the Giants' heartland.

For some of the many articles about his move to GWS, see GWS draftee Setanta O'hAilpin confesses West Sydney origins (not sure why it's a "confession"), O'hAilpin over the Blues and ready to be a Giant among boys and Giants pick 'big leprechaun' Setanta O'hAilpin.

Currently on 80 AFL games, hopefully the move to New South Wales will give Setanta the opportunity to become what we think would be the 4th "Irish experiment" player to play 100 VFL/AFL games, after Jim Stynes, Tadhg Kennelly and Sean Wight, noting of course the late Sean Wight's Scottish heritage and O'hAilpin's Australian birth.  Of course other Irishmen have played senior footy across Australia, but would not be considered part of the "Irish experiment" in which VFL/AFL clubs actively recruited them from Gaelic football or hurling in Ireland.

AFL Vanuatu is still young, but, the demands are increasing. Fund raising is well underway to help send the national U/16 team to Fiji next month (December) for the annual AFL Oceania tournament.  Domestically, the AFL Vanuatu season is nearing an end, with the Grand Final scheduled for December.