World Footy News

 

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.

Finally the news the women’s football world has been waiting for - the announcement of the PNG 2011 International Cup Women’s Team! After watching the men’s team win IC08, one can only wonder at the talent these girls are going to display. Will they prove to be as formidable as the men, or can the experience of Ireland, USA and Canada keep them in check. We’ll just have to wait and see!

Read on for the team list and to see some pics of the girls at the trials.

 

The Australian Rules Football League of Ireland (ARFLI) has revealed that Jeep Ireland has signed up to become its official sponsor for the next three seasons.

The partnership between ARFLI and Jeep will run from 2011 to 2013 and will extend across all Australian Football competitions and development programmes including the Schools' Cup. The Jeep logo will also appear on the national team kit during the AFL Europe annual EuroCup event, which takes place in Belfast on October 8th hosted by ARFLI.

Jeep Ireland's investment in Australian Football in this country is the largest single investment made in the sport and will allow ARFLI to continue to grow participation levels year on year. Announcing the partnership, ARFLI President Ciaran O' Hara said:"We are delighted to have Jeep on board as our major sponsor and partner for the next three years. Jeep's involvement with us will help us establish new development programmes and raise the profile of our domestic competitions, not to mention assisting us in the push to win the EuroCup on home soil later this year. Jeep's partnership, coupled with our recent teamwear sponsorship with Waterford-based Azzurri Sportswear, represents a massive endorsement of our league and we hope that our members, their families and our wider community will support our partners as passionately as they support us."

There is new footy club in Zagreb, with the new Zapruđe AFC (or KAN - Klub Australskog Nogometa - in Croatian) joining the Velika Gorica Bombers, Zaprešić Eagles, Agram Power and Zagreb Hawks clubs in the Croatian capital.

Zapruđe club founder and Croatian Knights stalwart Josip Kravar says that some players from other Zagreb area clubs decided to found their own club in their area of the town. The boys are aiming to build on real community spirit, and in the space of one month have attracted 25 players and have around 50 people watching every session from the sidelines.

Kravar says "This is a product of an idea to encourage progress of footy as in Melbourne, when the sport began long ago by founding the clubs in various part of the town. We are building strong community clubs and planning to start a project in September to pull up the kids from school in Zapruđe and start with school of Australian football.

The AFL has confirmed to worldfootynews.com that two high profile footballers will not be eligible to appear at the International Cup in 2011. While it would be good publicity to have them in the International Cup the AFL feels exemptions for these players would not be fair to opposition countries.

Israel Folau's development with GWS continues in a positive direction as he has been kicking goals for the club recently in a move to the forward line, but he will not be eligible for Tonga (he is of Tongan descent but born and raised in NSW and Queensland).

Three time AFL premiership player, veteran Mal Michael, was reported last week to have dominated the ruck for Aberfeldie Park in the EDFL. He was born in PNG but mostly raised in Australia. Mal has closely followed the PNG Mosquitoes but also does not fit the International Cup criteria, as specified below.