World Footy News

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.

Richmond have promoted James O’Reilly to its senior list less than a year after he joined the club. The Tigers first Irish recruit has been in fine form in the VFL, playing 12 matches with the Coburg Tigers, and will see this as a huge lift in his chances of playing for the senior side before the year is out.

O’Reilly (22), like many of his countrymen, is seen as a hard running half back/ midfield prospect. He was recruited after being scouted playing for his native Co. Down last year and was then invited to train at Tigerland. He obviously impressed and was picked up as an international rookie at pick 70 in the Rookie draft in December.

The Australian Football League Germany has released its squad for the 2010 European Championships, which kick off in Denmark and Sweden this weekend.

It will be a new-look Black Eagles squad taking the park, with core players from the Rheinland Lions unavailable due to time and financial constraints. AFLG clubs Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin have five representatives each, including national captain Tim Horenburg from the Munich Roos.

Stuttgart, Hamburg, the Rheinland Lions and AFLG expansion club Nürnberg have contributed a further one player each.

Rounding out the 22-man squad are three Germans currently playing in Sweden. The first is AFL Sweden president Jörg Pareigis, who first discovered Australian rules after moving to Malmö, Sweden and taking Swedish language lessons. One of Pareigis' classmates in the Swedish course was Ricky Nolan, past coach of the Port Malmö Maulers and son of North Melbourne's legendary 'Galloping Gasometer' Mick Nolan. He is joined by Oliver Seiberlich, a German-Swede from the Göteborg Beserkers who only narrowly missed selection in the Swedish Elks squad.

The third Swedish-based German in the squad is man-mountain Mats Wurmbach from Stockholm local league club Solna. At 208cm and 120kg, Wurmbach was a crowd favourite at the IC08 in Melbourne where he played for Sweden, and he will be an imposing presence for the Black Eagles.

The South Cardiff Panthers are proud to announce that Welsh cricket legend Robert Croft and Australian cricket legend Shaun Tait have agreed to be club Patrons.

Robert Croft became the first Welshman to achieve the 'double' of 1,000 first-class wickets and 10,000 first-class runs and has played international cricket for both England and Wales. He made his England debut against Pakistan in 1996 and earned a touring place to Zimbabwe and New Zealand. He played the first five tests of the 1997 Ashes series and played in a total of 21 test matches.

Shaun Tait is from Adelaide and played for Australia from 2005 onwards, where he made his test debut against England at Trent Bridge. Shaun is a big Aussie Rules fan and recently came to Llanrhumney in Cardiff along with fellow South Australian Mark Cosgrove to watch the Panthers vs Chippenham Redbacks.

This report courtesy of Mark Horsman.

Next weekend Canada's national Women's team hosts their American counterparts. Our thanks to Jake Anson for sending us the following report reviewing the national team's evolution over the past few years.

Canada national women's team first played in 2007, in two matches against the USA Freedom at Thunderbird Stadium in Vancouver, BC. At that time, adult women's footy in Canada was in its infancy and each of the Canadians were participating in their first football matches. This initial Team Canada - dubbed 'the Eagles' - contained players only from Calgary and Vancouver, of whom a third were under 16 years of age. Canada lost both matches by substantial margins, but gained valuable experience in playing the Americans.

The three years since have seen substantial growth in the number of women playing footy across Canada, and their skill base. In 2009, AFL Canada decided to re-brand the national women's team as 'the Northern Lights', to bring a recognizably Canadian identity to the team. Women's footy is now played across the four most-populous Canadian provinces, with clubs established in Canada's five largest cities - Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver. A yearly Canadian National Championship has been established for women, and youth girls footy development programs have commenced in Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario.

In this continuing series we are listing the games that have been included in our (unofficial) worldfootynews.com World Rankings. Last time we outlined the basic rules for inclusion, pointed readers at related discussion and listed the matches from nominal commencement (1994) through to the start of the 2002 International Cup (see World Footy Rankings - eligible games).

Today we list the games we are using from the start of that tournament through to the start of the 2005 International Cup.

We have also been "tweaking" the system compared with what we last presented, to produce a slightly more dynamic rankings scheme, designed to allow slightly quicker movement of teams up and down the ladder, although the final parameters have not been finalised. More on that later.

After exploding onto to the European footy scene with a strong performance at the EU Cup 09, the Iceland Ravens are preparing for their first full-field outing next weekend at the European Championships in Australian Football.

The Icelanders have been playing footy for barely a year, but have already founded a 3-team domestic league, besides now undertaking their second international tour.

The Ravens' squad will include the Iceland-native footy journeyman Pálli Finnsson, who has previously captained the Denmark Vikings, was named in the World All-Star team at the International Cup, and is currently captain of the Paris Cockerels. Pálli is also bringing a small contigent of Frenchmen to bolster the side, with Icelandic footy pioneer Friðgeir "Fritz" Ásgeirsson explaining they could have fielded an all-Icelandic team, but that would have meant a very lean squad of only around 20 players.

Regarding the core leadership group of the Ravens, Fritz says "Pálli is always a leading figure in the group and gets a lot of respect, and the same goes for his brother Jón Hrói Finnsson. Both of them have been playing the sport since around '95."

"Eyjólfur Bjarni Sigurjónsson took over as national coach from me after the EU Cup. Valdimar Gunnarsson leads by example, he's looked up to and respected by the team as he always gives 110%."

"I retain the captaincy, but I don't know for how much longer! Everyone is getting so good I'll be off the team sheet in no time."

In a season with more people playing footy in Wales than ever before, the third Welsh Australian Rules Football League (WARFL) Grand Final is almost upon us.

With their partner clubs languishing at the bottom of the ladder in the SANFL, the consistent South Cardiff Panthers and formidable Swansea Magpies have won the right for the second year running to play for the biggest prize in Welsh Australian Rules football. By the end of this week one of these proud clubs will be crowned the best team in Wales and get their hands on the coveted WARFL Premiership Cup.