World Footy News

 AFL Canada is pleased to announce that four players have been selected by the Australian Football League (AFL) to represent the World XVIII under 18 team in the up coming NAB Australian Under 16's championships to be played in Sydney, Australia in July. This is the 2nd year in a row that four Canadian Juniors have been selected for this honour.

All four players Alex Tivy, Jason Silen, Darren Ledoux, Brennan Lew-Cooke hail from the very successful North Delta Junior Australian Football League (NDJAFL) based in Vancouver, British Columbia that also produced two of the four players selected in the 2010 version of the World XVIII. Vancouver, British Columbia is home of the first Canadian to play professional AFL, Mike Pyke who plays for the Sydney Swans.
 
 

AFL Chief Executive Officer Andrew Demetriou yesterday said Australia would host Ireland in a two-match International Rules Series for the Cormac McAnallen trophy in October / November this year.

Australia currently holds the McAnallen trophy after winning both matches under former coach Mick Malthouse in Ireland last year. The opening Test of the 2011 series will be played on Friday October 28 with the second Test set down for Friday November 4.

A collection of photographs featuring Canada's Northwind at the 2008 AFL International Cup has been released. The book was put together by Jen Parker, wife of Canadian footy stalwart Bruce Parker.  Profits go to the current Northwind squad to support their 2011 journey.

The book can be previewed and purchased here.

worldfootynews.com understands that another country has withdrawn from the International Cup.

A couple of late drop-outs is not unexpected, especially with a big field of "possibles", but this country has been a regular good competitor at previous Cups. We'll publish details when we have confirmed them.

The withdrawal leaves a list of 19 nations (not including a possible multicultural side) to compete in this year's men's event. With at least one other country not completely over the line it demonstrates why the AFL are leaving the draw announcement until late - frustrating for fans (we're getting plenty of queries) but hard to avoid.

 

Jan Cooper may have what is arguably the most difficult job in football - as the AFL’s Female Football Development Manager. Recently the AFL has made a huge push for female football development in its bid to bring a Women’s Football League to Australian televisions by 2020 and Jan Cooper is at the front of this charge.

She is responsible for taking the sport from its traditional roots as a “boys only” game and developing it into something attractive to women, whilst overcoming not only the stigma attached to women in sports, but a lot of opposition from the football conservatives.

The AFL has been a male dominated environment for over 150 years, and though women have always been involved, they have typically been resigned to particular roles. Jan’s main challenge is converting the mindset of some in the industry to understand that women do want to coach, umpire and play football, and not just continue in the traditional roles in kiosks or as trainers. This “self-invitation”, she says, has not been easy for some to get their heads around.

The Western Bulldogs, in partnership with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) and the Maribyrnong Refugee Week Organising Committee will hold the 4th Annual Inter-AMES (Adult Multicultural Education Services) Football Carnival at the iconic Whitten Oval tomorrow.

Held in Refugee Week each year, this unique Carnival uses the power of Aussie Rules to bring together newly arrived students from a diverse range of backgrounds to learn skills, both on and off the field.

MFB fire trucks and the SmokeBUSters display – which takes people through a house fire - will also be at the Oval to help promote fire safety messages within multicultural communities.

The Greater Western Sydney GIANTS will tomorrow welcome over 120 newly arrived migrants and refugees participating in the Intensive English Centres Cup (IEC) to Blacktown Olympic Park in Sydney.

GWS GIANTS Senior Assistant coach Mark Williams, along with a number of GIANTS players, will meet with the participating boys and girls who have recently moved to Australia and have been taking part in IEC programs across Western Sydney.



The IEC Cup, which coincides with National Refugee Week, is run by the AFL for newly arrived migrant students, providing them with an opportunity to experience a different sport as they make friends and settle into their new home.

The students come from a variety of different countries including Afghanistan, China, Vietnam, Korea, Sudan, Ghana, Thailand and many others.



In Round 4 of the 2011 Welsh Australian Rules Football League season, the Vale Warriors were once again in fine form as they saw off the Bridgend Eagles at Heol Y Cyw RFC.

Despite winning their first game of their debut season, the Eagles have gone through a bad patch and struggled in front of goal and only managed to score 3 goals throughout the game. The Warriors, however, have been performing strongly and after nearly upsetting the reigning premiers Cardiff Panthers last week, they came into the game brimming with a confidence that saw them score 8 goals, winning 8.16 (64) to 3.8 (26).

With the Swansea Magpies forfeiting against the Cardiff Panthers, the only other game to go ahead this weekend saw the Bristol Dockers made a strong statement of their intent, with a big win away to the Cardiff Double Blues. Despite an attacking strength that has seen them consistently score well, the Double Blues have struggled in the back and conceded 29 goals against the Dockers. The team from across the Severn comfortably won 29.19 (193) to 9.3 (57).

This report courtesy of Joshua Davey, pictures courtesy of Kevin Welch Photography.

The Glasgow Sharks have set up their own TV channel on YouTube, where they are uploading all their games and some highlights from club functions. Videos from SARFL games as well as the Haggis cup and the Sharks own inter-club league Super-Sixes all uploaded with scores where possible, as not all the game is recorded sometimes.

The Sharks recent fundraising Race Night was the first function to be recorded and highlights are on the channel and seems to be a popular video. The Sharks President said “Sharks TV is helping us get more people interested and involved with the Sharks, and is a good way of letting us know where we need to improve." The YouTube channel is part of “The Sharks are Circling” campaign which is trying to get more people involved in the club and grow the club in Glasgow.

Have a look and watch some of the best footy outside Australia (if not the world!) - YouTube.com/user/GlasgowSharks.

The Foxtel Cup Round 2 has thrown up the first real surprise of the tournament so far.  Although North Ballarat was knocked out in Round 1, it was expected that fellow VFL clubs Williamstown and the Northern Bullants would win through over their SANFL and WAFL counterparts, given the Croweaters (SA) put up their weaker clubs and the WA league is generally accepted as a bit lower in standard.  But although Williamstown honoured their part, the Bullants suffered an unexpected loss.

The SANFL has paid a high price in the credibility stakes by allowing its lower ranked 2010 clubs to represent it against the best of the other states.  West Adelaide went down to top flight Williamstown by 19 points but the Bloods were only 6th in the SANFL in 2010 and were pumped by fellow SANFL club Norwood by 54 points the week before it played the Vics, so hardly in keeping with the Foxtel concept of the nation's best state league sides.

Also through to the semis are East Perth after a narrow 6 point win over the Northern Territory Thunder, and Port Adelaide Magpies after a 16 point win over North Adelaide.  The Thunder doing so well was a credit to their development since the Top End entered a team in Queensland's league, and now the NEAFL.

It was reasonable to expect the Foxtel Cup would show us the best of the VFL > the worst of the SANFL > best of the WAFL, but the Sandgropers (WA) have managed to push two of their clubs through to the semis.  So the battle remains alive for the top three state leagues. 

 

WFN has updated its unofficial World Rankings after the recent international matches in Europe. Favourites Ireland (ranked 4th) comfortably defeated Great Britain (10th) in England, whilst in Paris home side France lost fairly convincingly to Germany (13th). It was the debut for France in full field internationals, remembering it takes 8 matches to be consider fully ranked on our table. The results saw all teams hold steady in their positions.

As far as we know these are the last full field international prior to the 2011 AFL International Cup. Depending on how many matches are played, we hope to see Tonga, Peace Team, China and India play enough games to fully qualify on our rankings. France may qualify depending on how we count lightning carnival matches (if they are played to start IC11).

In the next few weeks we'll open up some discussions on how the various countries might fare at IC11.

Latest matches:

British Bulldogs	5.6 (36)
Irish Warriors	11.6 (72)

France	2.7 (19)
Germany	13.5 (83)

Below are our updated ranks.