World Footy News

The Seattle Grizzlies this week showed their stuff on TV show New Day Northwest.

The Sydney Swans' players will train today in the guernseys of their junior clubs, an initiative of Swans forward, Jarred Moore. So what will Mike Pyke train in is the big question?

While it will be a Canadian one, it will unfortunately be the guernsey he wore when he played in the Rugby World Cup for Canada - and not that of the Canada Northwind team (see below).

We’ve heard and seen much about North Melbourne and African refugee Majak Daw. Rookie listed by the Roos, Majak is continuing his footy apprenticeship with Werribee in the VFL.

However, this week sees the AFL Under 18 National championships being held in Sydney at Blacktown Oval. And it’s Tasmania that has an interesting player in their squad - 17 year old Tour Miar, a lightly build (69 kg 195 cm) ruckman.

Emmaus Wartovo, a key member of Papua New Guinea's victorious 2008 International Cup squad, is having a great season for Labrador in Queensland's top state league. The Mosquito representative has so far booted 17 goals in 7 games, including 5 goals on the weekend, but it wasn't enough to get the team over the line, losing by 7 points to Morningside. Despite the excellent haul for a small forward (he was listed at 173cm at age 21 for IC08), Emmaus has only featured in the best players once. He also had a great run in Tasmania in-between Queensland stints and was a major goalkicker during the Mozzies' victorious 2008 Cup campaign.

Meanwhile in the same league, countryman Amua Pirika had a breakout game for Mt Gravatt, with his best on ground performance steering the Vultures to a 4 point win over NT Thunder in Alice Springs (the Northern Territory have a pseudo-representative side in Queensland's top league). PNG's John James was named Mt Gravatt's third best player.

With so many Papuans playing well across Aussie leagues, in a forthcoming article we'll ask the question, just how good is PNG's best side?

Greg Miller - former Football Operations manager at a number of AFL clubs - is now with Flying Start and he spoke last week with SEN radio's Kevin Bartlett about this Friday's camp in Buenos Aires.

The audio can be heard here.

Talent scouts have headed to Buenos Aires in search of the next wave of AFL talent.

Peter Jess, well known for his involvement in recruiting Irish players, is heading the push. Greg Miller (former Richmond football manager) is the primary talent identifying agent, Robert Forster-Knight is in charge of athletic assessment, and in South America there is Leandro Zarco and Mario Cabellero. The West Coast Eagles' Steve Woodhouse is also expected to be present.

The plan is to target 16 to 18 year old players from soccer, Rugby and basketball, obviously those who don't get the opportunities/contracts they were seeing in those sports. Initially on offer is the chance for two players to "be selected to play in the Rest Of The World team in this years AFL National Underage Talent Championship", i.e. to join the World XVIII in July. The group will cover all expenses including 2 weeks preparatory training.

The group has set up a dual English and Spanish website, AFL Argentina and a Facebook page.

On any given weekend during an American footy season there can be any number of games happening across the US. With teams playing a number of one off tournaments and some smaller league structures, and metro leagues slotted in here and there the number can vary from one or two and on other weekends in the double figures.

This weekend is one of the latter. In Boston the OAFL Awfuls will be playing games against both Boston Demons and Baltimore/Washington Eagles. The Eagles and Demons will also play each other in their scheduled EAFL clash.

This Sunday the Southern California Australian Football League (SCAFL) will play the third place and Grand Final games for their metro competition, capping a nine round season that started in March. Our thanks to SCAFL President Corey Irwin for this preview

In the third place game the Riverside Football Club will take on the Los Angeles Swans. Riverside has been the talk of the competition this year, with a massive influx of new players thanks to a stepped-up recruiting effort. Look for players like Matt Morgan, Bobby Burgess, Pat Garthwaite and Deron Lien to lead the attack for RFC.

In 2010 the AFL has embarked on a new venture inviting two international teams, the World XVIII and the South Pacific Nations, to compete against Australian Under 16’s teams from varying states.

Both of the international teams will consist of U18 players from all around the world, tallying up to a whopping 21 countries represented. The teams will head down to Australia in July to take part in the NAB U16’s tournament, beginning with a game between the two international sides on Sunday July 4th, followed by games against other Australian states that week.

As the story was reported only a few weeks back on oafl.ca, the OAFL Insider got the chance to sit down with the two boys from the Ontario Australian Football League (OAFL) club, the Etobicoke Roos, who were selected for the World XVIII squad.

As the Ontario Australian Football League (OAFL) regular football season goes on hold this weekend for Canada's long weekend, May 24, a group of OAFL bandits entitled the OAFL Awfuls are set to hit the road down to Boston, Massachusetts.

The team will be participating in 2 matches on Saturday May 22nd against the US sides of the Boston Demons and the Baltimore Eagles.

Papua New Guinea's Stanis Susuve spent 2009 with the young Gold Coast Football Club as they made their way in the TAC Cup Under 18 competition. He almost didn't make the cut as the club, which enters the AFL in 2010, acquired elite young talent from around Australia ahead of their 2009 step up to VFL level. But Susuve was kept on to keep developing his footy, and last weekend made his VFL debut with the Gold Coast.

Although named in the back pocket he obviously got forward, slotting a critical goal from a tight angle late in the third quarter, giving the Coasters a narrow 8 point lead at the final break over Geelong's VFL side. In the last quarter GC pulled away to record their first win of the VFL season, adding to an earlier draw.

With the Gold Coast allocated most of the prime picks in the AFL Draft at the end of the year, holding a spot will be very difficult, but making his debut in the club's first VFL win must be a good step in the right direction.

GCFC 2.1 (13) 3.3 (21) 7.4 (46) 10.8 (68)
Geelong Cats` 0.3 (3) 2.7 (19) 5.8 (38) 5.10 (40)

GC Goals: Thompson (2), Russell (2), Weller, Magin, Susuve, Daye, Harris, Liddy
GC Best: Magin, Hutchins, Weller, Swallow, Ah Chee

PNG 15 year olds Victor Rame and Max Lavai this week visited Essendon, which according to our information signed them to international scholarships in February during a major dash for PNG talent (see AFL Clubs Sign another 6 of PNG’s Finest). The visit to Melbourne included a look around Windy Hill and meeting the Essendon senior list.

Rohan Connolly of Melbourne's The Age newspaper recently published an article titled International Rules OK, detailing many of the developments in international footy now impacting on the AFL, most of which have been covered in a variety of articles on WFN previously, but pleasingly are now getting a run in the biggest media publications. The information below comes from that article.