World Footy News

Austin Crows wingman Jesse Leos (pictured left with Mark "Bomber" Thompson) has made the trip to Australia this year to play with the Barwon Heads football club in the Bellarine Football Leauge. After some preseason games and his first two regular season games in the reserves, Leos has this week been picked to play in the senior team against Torquay at Torquay.

Country footy crowds are bigger than usual at this time of year particularly Easter/Anzac day holidays coming together and Bells Beach surfing tournament on just down the road, so it should be a good crowd to greet him.

You can read all about Jesse's journey so far in his blog Diary of a Redneck Texan Downunder.

The newly reincarnated Birmingham Bears took the first crown in their history last Saturday, April 16, as they won the AFL Britain Central & North-West League Lightning Cup, held in Hull.

The league’s inaugural Lightning Cup, which marked exactly 3 weeks until regular season start, featured 6 of the 7 teams in the division with Huddersfield Rams, Manchester Mosquitoes, Nottingham Scorpions and Sheffield Thunder being joined by newcomers Birmingham Bears and Hull Mariners.

Thanks to Tim Smith from the Birmingham Bears for this report.

The following is an extract from the article The Amateur: Australian Rules Football, Yet Another Metaphor For Life by Spencer Hall in series where he tries various sports for the first time.  For his first taste of Aussie rules he joined Westside Bombers in the Atlanta metro footy league.  The article appeared on the SB Nation website.  The full article can be found here.  

 Everyone adjourns for beer. I turn in my jersey. I touch my knees, both still functioning. Ears: intact, and still sitting firmly attached to my head. The violence promised by reels of AFL Youtube maim-montage never materialized. Oh, one player was firmly decleated on a boundary kick, sure, with our best defender running through him like an enraged PCP-smoking hobo through a wet cardboard box. It looked magnificent and sounded even better,  the rush of air flying out of the poor victim's lungs followed by the audible thud of him hitting the grass.

Head Coaches Stuart Grills and Jaye Macumber have named their initial twenty five players to represent Canada in the Men's Division for the 2011 International Cup in Melbourne and Sydney this coming August.

These men have been working extremely hard since November 2010 and are thrilled to have the opportunity to represent their country at this International tournament. The players for the five remaining spots will be chosen by the end of May.

Congratulations again to the twenty five players from across the country.

In this installment, we check in with the Beijing Bombers, the China Reds' tour to Thailand for the ANZAC clash, a new club starting up in Qingdao, and Jiaming Pi's blog on the SBS Chinese language website, promoting footy to the Australian Chinese community.

The following is a media release from the AFLPA.

AFL Players are supporting the families of deceased and wounded Australian soldiers by donating 17 jumpers – signed by stars such as Gary Ablett Jr, Adam Goodes, Matthew Pavlich and Nick Riewoldt – to be raffled on Anzac Day in Afghanistan. Each team jumper has been signed by the club captain (except Brisbane Skipper Jonathan Brown, who was in hospital at the time) and contains a message of support for the Australian Mentoring Task Force 2 (MTF-2), based in Uruzgan Province in southern Afghanistan.

Each jumper is being raffled, with half the proceeds going to Legacy and half going to the MTF-2 Benevolent Fund, which directly supports the families of soldiers from the Task Force who have been killed or injured in the line of duty. Organisers hope the raffle will raise more than $20,000, with $10,000 already raised over the space of a few days. Team captains from all National Rugby League teams have also donated jumpers for the raffle.

A series of newspaper articles in the last few weeks have speculated that the AFL will stage several matches outside of Australia in the next 2 years.

A match in Wellington or Auckland, New Zealand is on the cards, perhaps between the Western Bulldogs and Hawthorn, and possibly not until 2012 - see Western Bulldogs plan to play home match in New Zealand within two years

The GWS Giants have put their hand up to play a match in London, possibly late 2011 - see Sheedy taunts Folau critics as Giants size up London match.

Essendon versus Richmond in Mubai, India has again been raised - see Bombers, Tigers in Mumbai, with Austrade's Senior Trade Commissioner in New Delhi, Peter Linford, said to be finalising a detailed bid to stage a match early next year which will not only promote the AFL but also trade links between the countries.

The above article also mentions the much delayed Collingwood versus West Coast in Cape Town, South Africa, as still a chance, and a return to Shanghai for Melbourne and Brisbane.

Of course there has been a lull in such matches attributed to the global financial crisis, and none of the above are locked in, but hopefully some or all will eventuate.

The Shanghai AFL has returned for 2011, with two rounds being played in April so far. A number of new faces have been signed up to all three teams, including a number of young Chinese students, as well as recently retired North Melbourne player, Shannon Watt.

So far the Dockers, who have still yet to win a title in their two seasons, have looked the goods and are favourites to claim the Spring Season cup.

Read on for full scores and photos of the action from the Shanghai AFL's first two rounds for 2011.

"His improvement's been extraordinary. I look at him six months ago and I would have thought he was miles away from being able to play AFL footy, but his improvement was so rapid that we gave him an opportunity in the NAB Cup and he performed quite well in there. If he continues to improve at that rate then he'll be a pretty handy AFL player," Scott said.

See more in North Melbourne coach Brad Scott rules out Majak Daw debut against Richmond.

Abu Dhabi have won their first-ever AFL Middle East Premiership; finishing the regular season undefeated and then defeating Doha in the final in front of approximately 400 fans.

The AFL wishes to advise that PlayStation®3(PS3™) owners will be able to take to the field in the winter months from the comfort of their living room.

Published by Tru Blu Games, AFL Live will be available in stores across Australia from Thursday April 21.  

Available on PlayStation®3 for the first time, AFL Live is the latest game instalment, and undoubtedly the best so far.

The Vietnam Swans will this weekend host the Hong Kong Dragons in Vung Tau for the second ANZAC Friendship Match.

The venue for the match is the Vung Tau Greyhound Racing Track, which was used as the venue for footy matches by Australian soldiers during the Vietnam War.

Former AFL star Richard "Ossie" Osborne, who played with Footscray, Fitzroy, Sydney and Collingwood during a career spanning 17 seasons, will be a special guest taking part in the match.

Elsewhere in Asia, the Thailand Tigers are taking on the China Reds in Kanchanaburi, Thailand, near Hellfire Pass on the site of the infamous Burma Railway, where numerous Australian POWs lost their lives in the Second World War.

In Indonesia, the Borneo Bears are hosting the Jakarta Bintangs and Bali Geckos, in what will be their 3rd annual ANZAC Day Cup in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.