World Footy News

In partnership with AFL clubs Port Adelaide and Fremantle Dockers, AFL Femminile Italia is proud to present their first of a number of fundraising projects, aimed at helping the AFL Italia women’s team take part in the AFL International Cup, being held this year in Sydney and Melbourne in August.

The Fremantle Dockers have supported AFL Italia for the past 18 months through their partnership with AFL Italia club Genoa Dockers. Port Adelaide also have connections with the Italian community in Adelaide and last year included AFL Italia representatives in their Famiglia di Port dinner and fundraiser.

The AFL Round 9 clash between Port Adelaide and Fremantle Dockers is being tagged as the “Indigenous Round” and Port Adelaide and the Fremantle Dockers boast the highest number of indigenous players on their lists.

Both clubs see this as a great opportunity to promote Indigenous Art, but also as a way to show support for the growth and development of Australian Football internationally.

The NZ Hawks will soon finalise their travelling squad of 26 players for the 2011 International Cup. Pleasingly the average age has continued to decrease from 25 in 2002, to 23 in 2008 to around 21 for 2011. What any youth-focused programme would wish to see is that players will ‘buy in’ to the sport and continue through to the seniors. With 18 players graduating from previous NZ Hawks Under 16 and Under 20 NZ teams can be happy that this is being achieved, as that represents 46% of the squad.

There is only one player of the 2002 squad looking to return nine years later and that is key forward Richard Bradley who was one of five teenagers in that team. He again returned in the 2005 Champion team and his team mates from then David Cory-Toussaint and Andrew Marsden are part of the extended squad. Eight players in total from the 2008 squad are hoping to return, which is just under a third. I would expect that that is fairly standard across the board for all the nations.

The squad currently comprises 21 from Auckland, 11 from Canterbury, 4 from Waikato and 3 from Wellington - giving a wide geographical spread across the nation.

The final squad will be decided after a camp this weekend, with other training camps to follow in Mid June and Mid July.

Poland's first Australian rules football club is under formation in the city of Poznań, dubbed the Polish Bisons.

Maciej Makarewicz says the team is hopeful of making their international debut at the 2011 Euro Cup in Belfast, and are also hoping to be able to schedule some friendly matches with the clubs in Berlin and Prague, both of which are within a few hours' drive. The team currently has 13 players, none of whom are Australians, although there is some playing experience through squad member Wlodek Przygorzewski, who took part in the European Crusaders side at the EU Cup a few years back.

Closer to home, the Bisons intend to encourage the creation of teams in other Polish cities and kick off a domestic competition.

The Bison is a popular symbol for Poland, with Białowieża Forest in the east of the country famous for having been the last wild home of the European Bison, also known as the Wisent, whose population had almost been hunted to extinction by the 1920s, but is now slowly recovering around Europe thanks to breeding from the wild Polish herds.

Whilst the new club is yet to create a web presence, anyone interested in contacting them can try their "Official" Fan Page.

New Zealand Rugby League has selected Melbourne Storm winger Matt Duffie into their national team, the Kiwis. The 20-year-old scored two tries on debut for the Storm last year against the New Zealand Warriors in the NRL. He is hoping to make a similar impact in the Test arena as he makes his Test debut against the Kangaroos on the Gold Coast on Friday night.

The St Kentigern's, Auckland old boy, who was once selected for the New Zealand Aussie Rules team, has been in great form this season, scoring five tries in the five matches and has proven to be a master under the high-ball.

Duffie admits his AFL background has helped him in the rival code. "I just got into AFL just for a kick-around and something to do on a Sunday, but the skills that I learned there have helped me a lot in my career so far and hopefully they'll continue to help me."

Duffie was selected in the original squad for the 2008 International Cup but withdrew when signed to the NRL’s Storm. The withdrawal of the high flying 18 year old at that stage was a tremendous loss to the squad.

Given the changes that have occurred since then with International recruitment, and particularly with Hawthorn’s efforts in NZ, it could have been that Duffie laid the groundwork as an AFL player for others such as Kurt Heatherley to follow.

For more please view NZ Falcons Progressing Well and Duffie ready to lift Kiwis.

Brett Kirk, retired former Sydney Swans captain, and now International Ambassador of the AFL, stopped in India as part of his World Tour.

Kirk's base in India was Mumbai, and this is where he kicked off his tour with a clinic in the city at the Oval Maidan, Churchgate. It was followed by a meeting with Austrade officials in Mumbai to join hands and help develop the game in India.

Missed out on selection for your country’s IC11 squad? Is your country not even sending a team to IC11? There’s still a chance to get involved - the AFL is looking for volunteers to help out in both the men’s and women’s competitions. The competition will be held this year in Sydney and Melbourne from 15-27 August and needs volunteers for a range of roles.

If you are interested, please fill out the information in the attachment below and return to Jan Cooper, jan.cooper@afl.com.au as soon as possible.

IC11 Volunteers table document

The Iceland Ravens today officially announced that they will not be attending the 2011 International Cup, with Icelandic AFL president Friðgeir "Fritz" Ásgeirsson making the following statement:

"It is with a heavy heart and great regret that I have to announce to you that the Icelandic National Team will not be participating in the IC11. We left it late to make the final decision, hoping that by some grace of god we would be able to participate, but to no avail. After weeks of deliberation we have concluded that we simply cannot risk overstraining the group. Most of our players are new to the game and such a big effort, as the IC11 trip and participation is, would put great strain on the guys, physically, mentally and not least financially.

We have therefore decided to concentrate on European competitions for the time being, hoping that we can build on our resent success here and bring an even stronger team to the IC14. Who knows, maybe we'll be able to generate some revenue during the meantime and subsidize the journey for the National Team to the IC14."

The IceAFL kicked off their 3-team domestic league in 2010, as well as making their full-field debut at the inaugural European Championship in Australian Football, held in Denmark and Sweden during last August. We wish the IceAFL all the best - they've achieved some impressive growth as a league in only a short period of time.

Photo: The Iceland Ravens at the EC2010.

The Denmark Vikings have announced a preliminary squad list of 26 players for the 2011 International Cup, with a number of familiar names set to make the trip to Australia in August.

All Danish domestic clubs except for Århus have at least one member in the side, with power club Farum is again the most represented with 15 players - a reflection of the Cats having Denmark's largest and longest-running juniors program.

Five members of the European Legion are in the squad, including Mathias Biron who also travelled to Australia as part of the World 18 last year. Chris Campion and Nicholai Secher will also bring some Australian club experience to the team, having stayed on in Australia after the IC08 to play a season with Thomson in the Geelong & District FL.

National team coach Jim Campion notes that the squad is not 100% finalised, with some members still to confirm their availability, but the Vikings list as it currently stands is given below.

The seemingly inevitable has occurred, with several more teams confirmed as pulling out of the 2011 International Cup. Every 3 years the list of hopefuls shrinks as the event draws near, and we watch on hoping that the final number is at least higher than the previous tournaments. That still looks reasonably safe at this stage, especially as Timor-Leste are apparently back in contention, a surprise given their position in February. Note that this list is "in contention", not a list of 100% confirmed contestants.

WFN spoke to AFL Multicultural and International Coordinator Peter Romaniw and he confirmed that Croatia have pulled out due to the large financial challenge. Also missing from the last list we saw are Iceland, Finland and Indonesia. As a very young footy nation and a developing country the absence of Indonesia is no surprise.

The current list now stands at 21, including an Australian-based multicultural team. 2008 saw 16 nations in the main draw. Question marks remain over some candidates, such as the Swiss still needing some funding proposals to succeed.

AFL Queensland reports the final day results from the Australia Post Under 16 Queensland state championships.

The final day play off matches included the match up of the undefeated Gold Coast Stingrays and the Coca-Cola PNG Binatangs, in the clash for 1st place. The Gold Coast ran out 40-point winners, but the Binatangs were far from disgraced in their 11.7 (73) to 4.9 (33) loss.

Read on for the full results from today's games.

Next Saturday, May 7th, at 1:30pm, the Sacramento Screamers men’s team will play their first ever game, taking on the Las Vegas Gamblers. As a curtain raiser to this game, there will also be a women’s development game held at 12:00 with players from the Arizona Ladyhawks and the Sacramento Screamers joining with female players from Las Vegas to form two teams to play a 12-a-side game.

Later in May, on the 21st, Baltimore/ Washington DC will host an Eastern Australian Football League women’s game.

On June 25th, the Denver Lady Bulldogs will host the Minnesota Freeze.

A women’s game is being arranged for July 30th in California between Orange County Bombshells and Sacramento Screamers.

On September 10th, Boston will host an Eastern Australian Football League women’s game. On the other side of the country, another women’s match is being arranged for the same date in San Diego, California, with female players from Sacramento, San Diego and Los Angeles or Orange County taking part.

With the original list of hopeful IC11 attendees having shrunk somewhat, some positive news has come out of Europe with the AFL Switzerland stating that they are still planning on making the trip Down Under this August.

At this point, it looks likely that France and Switzerland will be the only new European nations at the 2011 International Cup, with other nations including Croatia and the Netherlands keen early, but unable to clear financial or logistical hurdles to make it to Australia this time around. Italy were originally hoping to send both men's and women's teams, but eventually decided to only bring their women's side.

Peta Lowry, who is working with both the Swiss men's side and the Italian women's side, says that the Swiss are still very much focussed on getting to Australia in August, with a number of initiatives underway to source funding for the trip.