World Footy News

With the temperature over 30 degrees celcius, hydration and sunblock were the buzzwords of the day. Players were thankful for the irrigation system that has been installed since the previous Nationals making the ground conditions good for footy. Sunday looks like it could be even warmer, set to reach 33 degrees celcius.

New York, Denver and Golden Gate leading the way in Division1 winning both their games. All matches appear to have been fairly close affairs with 35 points being the biggest margin.

Calgary and Dallas look to be dominating Divison 2, along with Minnesota and Chicago who are also unbeaten.

The United States Australian Football League will kick off its 2010 National Tournament in Louisville, Kentucky in the next hour with matches taking place over this weekend.

The popular event is the biggest Australian Football tournament anywhere in the world, and attracts more than 1,000 players, officials and coaching staff, with a total of 32 men’s teams spread across four divisions, as well as 6 women’s teams representing over a dozen cities across the USA and Canada. The tournament in Louisville, Kentucky will also features juniors exhibition clinics and games, Under 23 and women’s development seminars, umpires clinics, a national administrators conference and the USAFL’s Annual General Meeting.

The tournament will be held at Louisville Soccer Park (Champions Park) in Louisville, Kentucky, at 2050 RIVER RUN ROAD (just off Zorn Avenue at I-71).

The AFL today named the Australian squad for the upcoming two-Test series against Ireland for the 2010 International Rules Series. The Australian team, to be coached by Michael Malthouse, will gather in Melbourne next Friday, October 15, before leaving for Ireland on Saturday October 16. Gary Ablett Jnr had previously said he was keen to play but was reported to have withdrawn his availablility this week.

The first Test will be played at Limerick on Saturday October 23 and the second Test will be played at Croke Park in Dublin on Saturday October 30. The squad is: Todd Banfield (Brisbane Lions), Eddie Betts (Carlton), Matthew Boyd (Western Bulldogs), Daniel Cross (Western Bulldogs), Patrick Dangerfield (Adelaide Crows), Paul Duffield (Fremantle),

Woodside Energy, one of Australia’s major energy exporters to Asia, has agreed to become a major sponsor of the Australian Football League’s first ever match in China. Woodside will be an associate partner of the Kaspersky Cup, AFL Shanghai Showdown between Melbourne and the Brisbane Lions, which will be played at the Jiangwan Sports Centre in Shanghai on Sunday, October 17.

Woodside Senior Vice President, Corporate, Tina Thomas, said the match provided an ideal opportunity to showcase the company’s support for Australian football in one of its major customer countries. Since 2006 Woodside has been exporting liquefied natural gas to China from the North West Shelf Venture under a 25-year contract.

The company, which has an office in Beijing, is in discussions with Chinese customers about potential supplies from Woodside’s wider portfolio of projects and developments.

Back in late August WFN told you about Andrew Cadzow having been in Fiji helping with preparations for the David Rodan Cup.

AFL South Africa has once again staged its national championships, then followed up with a friendly against the touring Australian Amateur Football Council's Under 23 side, drawn from the amateur leagues in Victoria, SA, WA and leagues in Tasmania. This initiative has seen the Aussies doing the kind of South African tours we've seen in the past, but really getting heavily involved in teaching the up and coming Lions players, especially in an area considered lacking, coaching of team tactics.

The third annual footyWILD National Championships culminated with a victory to the home Province Western Cape Magpies over the Gauteng Blues in a tough encounter at Khayelitsha Cricket Ground on Friday afternoon (Oct 1). Besides the match at Khayelitsha Cricket Oval, Cape Town, the AAFC 13 day tour was also scheduled to include an exhibition match at Monash University, Johannesburg, on Wednesday October 6 . It has been an all-round effort, with support from the AFL, the AAFC member states, government and a state league contribution with the WAFL’s Community Development Manager Cameron Agnew outstanding in an umpiring education role throughout.

The USAFL has announced seedings for the 2010 USAFL tournament to be played this weekend in Louisville, Kentucky. Division 1 of the tournament is split into two groups and Chris Adams from US Footy News reviews the seasons of the teams competing in that division to give us the form of each going in.

The number one seed in Group A is the Denver Bulldogs. Denver finished the season with a record of 5-0. While they had some good wins on the road, particularly the recent tournament against Boston. Their only win against a ranked team came against Chicago United at home. That said, Denver is a 7-time National Championship winner and always brings their A-game to Nationals. In 2009 they dominated the ruck with former AFL Fremantle Docker Brendon Feddema, they were also assisted by the great work off half-back by the Championship game MVP Dom Kennedy.

The annual Asian Championships of Australian Football will be held in Shanghai on Saturday week, with an encouraging twelve teams to take part, a two-team increase on the previous year's event. All of last year's teams will be present, although Bali and Jakarta are consolidated as Indonesia. Joining them are the Japan Goannas, Macau Lightning and the Asian Barbarians.

Dubai Heat, aiming to win their third consecutive title, are the hot favourites. They're taking the tournament very seriously, withdrawing from the upcoming AFL Middle East season, apparently in an effort to focus on the "greater prize". This is a big statement considering the Heat are reigning AFL ME Premiers.

Across the weekend, the SANFL Grand Final played out. Normally held the week after the AFL Grand Final, this year the SANFL Grand Final was up against both the AFL on the Saturday afternoon and the NRL on the Sunday evening.

With the footy seasons in New Zealand all up and running here is a brief overview of recent news from around the country.

Auckland:-

The Auckland season (http://www.aafl.co.nz) is about half way through and last year’s Grand Finalists Waitakere Magpies and University Blues are sharing the top two positions. Rounding out the four are North Shore Tigers and Mt Roskill Saints with regular cannon fodder Manurewa Raiders and Takapuna Eagles completing the ladder. In the last round of scores available the Saints beat the Eagles on default, the Magpies defeated the Raiders 120- zip and the Blues won 14.13: 97 over the Tigers 9.2:56.

After the stunning drawn AFL Grand Final the teams went to battle in the re-match the following week, with Collingwood, the best team during the minor round, not letting St Kilda get close the second time around. Collingwood 16.12 (108) defeated St Kilda 7.10 (52). Below are Bigpond highlights via Youtube.

The AFL today announced changes to the Laws of the Game for the 2011 Toyota AFL Premiership Season, following an extensive period of consultation throughout 2010. AFL General Manager Football Operations Adrian Anderson, Chairman of the Laws of the Game Committee, said the Commission had approved the following:

1) An alteration to the interchange system, whereby AFL teams will have a bench comprised of three interchange players and one player to be used as a substitute;

2) A change to the Advantage Rule, whereby the player and not the umpire will decide if there is an advantage to a team in playing on after a free kick;

3) Simplify the rough conduct (bumping) rule and make consistent with head down over the ball, so that a player who elects to apply a bump in any situation is liable if he makes forceful contact with the head, unless:
a. the player was contesting the ball and did not have a realistic alternative way to contest the ball; or
b. the contact was caused by circumstances outside the control of the player which could not be reasonably foreseen.

It will be interesting to see how widely these rules are adopted by international leagues who usually use their own discretion when it comes to implementation of new laws (as implementation may be hampered locally by cost or extra administration required).