World Footy News

Canadian Mike Pyke’s extraordinary journey from international rugby to the AFL will continue for at least the next two years. The Sydney Swans today announced that he has signed a two year contract with the Club. Pyke, who has 20 rugby Test caps for Canada, first came to Australia in June 2008 to trial with the Swans. A few months later he was signed as an international rookie and in 2009 he went on to play his first senior game.

He started season 2010 on the rookie list but has made enormous progress since being called into the senior side in round seven as a replacement for injured ruckman Mark Seaby. Pyke, 26, has now played a total of 20 games and is developing into a valuable big man for the Club - and a trailblazer for athletes converting to AFL from the rugby codes.

Quarter-by-quarter scores from round 2 of the European Championship in Australian Football, courtesy of The Footy Record and the EC2010 organizing committee, updated as close to live as we can manage!

Hawks players Michael Osborne, Brent Guerra, Clinton Young, Brent Renouf, Carl Peterson and Ryan Schoenmakers and Assistant Coach John Barker, were joined by 13CABS drivers and their families for a football carnival to celebrate 13CABS Multicultural Harmony Day at Waverley Park today.

The drivers and their children, many of whom had never picked up a football before, participated in a skills clinic in the afternoon, which included with a focus on team values of respect and responsibility. Hawks forward Michael Osborne said the afternoon was particularly important, especially in the wake of an assault on a taxi driver in Springvale less than 24 hours ago.

The USA have defeated Canada in a come from behind victory at the 49th Parallel cup in Toronto on Saturday. After trailing at half time, the USA Revolution restricted the Northwind to a single goal in the second half, storming home to win by 5 goals.

The USA U23's also comfortably defeated Canada by over 10 goals, whilst in the Women's game Canada managed to reverse the trend defeating the US by 3 goals.

49th Parallel Cup - Men's

	1/4	1/2	3/4	Full Time
USA	1.4 (10)	2.5 (17)	6.9 (51)	9.12 (66)
Canada	2.1 (13)	4.1 (25)	4.2 (26)	5.2 (32)

Umpires' MVP: Dustin Jones (USA)

Goals - USA: Dustin Jones 3, Danny Hansen 1, Ryan Kastl 1, Stephen Moore 1, Andy Vancia 1, Andrew Werner 1.
Goals - Canada: Aaron Falcioni 3, Ash Steir 1, Oliver Hayward 1

Best - USA: Donnie Lucero, Brandon Bludan, Chris Candelaria, Andrew Werner, Jason Newquist, Luke Memeth.
Best - Canada: George Dimacakos, Jimmy Oertel, Kevin Minaker, Tasos Dimacakos, Frank Luisser, Manny Matata.

The 2010 European Championship in Australian Football opened today with the first round of pool matches at Stefan Boldklub in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Clear skies and sunny weather greeted the teams as they assembled in front of a crowd of more than 700 spectators for an historic opening day's play in the first ever championships in Europe.

Co-hosts Sweden opened their account in a commanding fashion against a committed Croatian side, who were keen to leave a positive initial impression in their first ever full-format match. In the end, the Swedes ran out comfortable winners by 96 points: Sweden 16.17 (113) d Croatia 2.5 (17)

Great Britain took on Finland in the second game and were well held for the first three quarters, before kicking away to a comfortable 74 point win: Great Britain 11.16 (82) d Finland 1.2 (8)

Tournament favourites Ireland were never in doubt in their tie against Germany. In an often fast paced and highly skilled encounter, Ireland showed their pedigree against a tiring German side: Ireland 18.10 (118) d Germany 0.0 (0)

The day's final encounter featured home team, Denmark, against North Atlantic neighbours and newcomers Iceland. Despite a quick opening goal by the Icelanders, Denmark was never troubled for the rest of the day and finished clearly ahead: Denmark 19.16 (130) d Iceland 2.1 (13)

Quarter-by-quarter scores from the European Championship in Australian Football, courtesy of The Footy Record and the EC2010 organizing committee, updated as close to live as we can manage!

The US Revolution yesterday took out the 2010 49th Parallel Cup with a solid 34 point win after the Northwind led at half time.

In other results the OAFL Awfuls' poor kicking let them down in a 17 point loss to the Boston Demons that saw them kick 2.15, the Canadian Northern lights upset the favoured US Freedom by 23 points and the US Under 23 side easily defeated the Canadian Under 23 team by 68 points.

As the inaugural European Championship starts this weekend, Irish Warriors coach Tom Madigan is entering his first campaign in charge of the side in confident mood. The Irish will go into the tournament as favorites but Madigan is not taking anything for granted. He feels that the Irish preparations have gone well and can’t wait for the action to start.

“AFL is growing rapidly in Europe and this is the first European Cup so it is difficult to gauge what the standard will be,” says Madigan. “We are delighted the AFL are showing ongoing interest in the northern hemisphere countries and we are looking forward to the opportunity to meet some of the other newer teams playing across Europe. I think Denmark, England and Sweden might be the ones to watch, but we will not underestimate the potential of any of the countries in the competition.”

Recently Hawthorn Football Club played host to Trent Croad Scholarship holder Kurt Heatherley, 15, and his brother Jason, 18.

Kurt, the first AFL International Scholarship player from New Zealand to be listed with the Club, has been on one of his regular visits to train with the Hawks in Melbourne as part of his commitment to the Club.

For more info on how the boys found their week please read http://www.hawthornfc.com.au/news/new...fault.aspx

The AFL Commission announced yesterday that it had granted Team GWS a licence to become the 18th team in the AFL competition, starting in 2012. The announcement of the licence being granted was made Thursday after the formal signing of an agreement with the NSW Government and the RAS for a $60 million redevelopment of the Sydney Showgrounds – the home ground of Team GWS.

The inclusion of Team GWS has potentially very big ramifications for footy internationally. Coach Kevin Sheedy has previously flagged his intentions to seek international footy talent and backed that up this year with the recruitment of Bayanda Sobetwa from South Africa.

After a four year hiatus the Clare Crows have returned to the Australian Rules Football League of Ireland (ARFLI) and this time they are here to stay. The Crows were founded by South Australian Andrew Sexton in 2002. The Adelaide Crows donated jumpers and footballs and the Crows joined the ARFLI. The club was dissolved in 2006 and was resurrected this year by Pat McEvoy. Pat played for the Midland Tigers last year but he wanted to play for his home town team.

We now present the listing of the next group of games that have been included in our (unofficial) worldfootynews.com World Rankings covering the period from the start of the 2005 International Cup through to just prior to the start of the 2008 International Cup. See World Footy Rankings - eligible games and World Footy Rankings - eligible games - part two for the last two editions of this series of articles.

It's interesting to see just how many full scale internationals have been played since our nominal starting point in 1994. Over time as we get new events such as the inaugural European Championships and the Oceania Cup it's easy to forget that fairly significant tournaments have been held in the past, such as the Atlantic Alliance tournament in London in 2001 and the Arafura Games in Darwin which have periodically featured international footy sides.

One modification since our first preliminary rankings using the new system is that we will require teams to have played 8 games before entering the system in full - prior to that they will be given provisional ranking points but not a recognised ladder position.

The fourth and final article on eligible games will list matches from the 2008 International Cup through to the present.