World Footy News

The Dubai Heat have again been crowned AFL Middle East Premiers, cementing their position as the most successful Australian Football club in the region. Whilst their competitor in the Grand Final, the Abu Dhabi Falcons, were missing a few star players due to injury and other commitments, ultimately it was a solid effort from the Heat that won them the match.

In the AFL Middle East season proper, each team plays each other once and the Falcons-Heat contest was scheduled for the final round. This match had gone down to the wire; the Heat edging out the Falcons by a slender two points. Whilst the victor remained the same in the Grand Final, the score line didn’t - Dubai this time registering a 54 point victory.

The emerging PNG Mosquitoes, playing for the second weekend in a row during the Cairns pre-season tournament, certainly proved that their 10 day camp was of immense benefit. The Young Mosquitoes won three from four, with a crushing win over South Cairns in their final hit out.

With a strong core of senior and junior players already under scholarship at South Queensland clubs, a new and younger Mosquito outfit will be seen in their fourth tilt at the International Cup as they endeavour to go back-to-back in the IC11.

The PNG outfit, made up of 6 senior Mosquito members and a group of talented but raw youngsters all in their teens, improved rapidly over 10 days.

AFL Asia Pacific manager Andrew Cadzow said it was a learning experience for many of the players. "For most of them, even having green grass and a good set-up at Cazalys, they are used to playing on dirt pitches and cricket pitches so it was culturally very different for those younger boys,’’ he said.

"It’s a pretty young side, our best 20 players are still in Brisbane playing, so it was really good for the young boys to see how well they went.’’

The Melbourne print media today reported that a review into women's footy commissioned by the AFL could lead to the creation of a national Women's League.

As well as the review into women's footy at junior and grassroots level, Hawthorn are reportedly close to signing an agreement with an existing Melbourne women's footy club to become the Hawks' women's team.

Victorian Women's Football League president Debbie Lee said she would like to see AFL-affiliated women's sides playing curtain-raisers at AFL matches, saying "Initially it might be a Melbourne-based competition with four or five AFL clubs supporting women's footy, and then develop into a national competition where each state is represented. That's my dream."

The article can be read at the Age newspaper website here.

As previously reported, the AFL is allowing the inaugural World XVIII youth squad to be supplemented by "multicultural" youths born overseas who have been living in Australia for no more than 5 years and have at least one parent born overseas.

Yesterday (Sunday) saw trials in Melbourne for eligible players.

It was also announced that two players from China will play in the World Team and will train at Monash University in the lead-up to the Under 16 championships in July.

The AFL's General Manager National and International Development, David Matthews, said the AFL's overseas talent programs had increasingly identified young athletes who had the potential to play AFL football at the elite level, with most prospects coming from Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, South Africa, Ireland, Japan, Fiji, Tonga, Nauru and Samoa (spanning both the World and South Pacific regions), and that other talented athletes could also be identified from affiliated leagues in Canada, the USA, China and continental Europe.

International students across Victoria will be given an opportunity to experience Australian Football through a unique ticket offer announced by the AFL.

The AFL, in partnership with Monash University and La Trobe University, will make 5000 tickets available to international students for the Melbourne-Brisbane game at the MCG on April 24.

Melbourne and Brisbane will also play the first AFL game in China later this year, battling it out for the Kaspersky AFL Cup (otherwise known as the `Shanghai Showdown’) at Jiangwan Sports Centre in Shanghai on October 17.

Rounding out the field at this year's Harmony Cup will be a combined side playing under the name "Team Harmony". The team includes players from Israel, Lebanon, Somalia, Ethiopia, South Africa, UK, USA, PNG and Samoa, including PNG's former AFL star Mal Michael.

Tournament director Brian Clarke explains that Team Harmony was thrown together at the last minute, following the withdrawal of Team Africa. "A trial was held at Gosch's Paddock in Melbourne on Sunday 14 March, and 22 people turned up desperate to make the squad."

"At the same time, India was training at the opposite end of the ground and were being filmed by Channel 7. Both teams were very keen for a hit out before the Harmony Cup and so it was quickly agreed to arrange a scratch match on the day."

There are versions of the game played pre-season in Sydney for 6-a-side and 13-a-side, and this year the Sydney Women’s AFL are kicking off their season with a festival of fun, events and a 7-a-side tournament.

From the creative minds of two former NSW state Reps, Lisa Roper and Kerry Taylor, these girls have created a day long event with some modified rules to encourage a free-running style of play. “As we have found at National level, the top states play a very hand-ball/running style of football which we are trying to develop more and more in Sydney” says Roper who is also one of the new Development Managers for Sydney Women’s AFL.

PNG Mosquitoes made their first appearance in an Australian club tournament last Saturday, going through the AFL Cairns pre-season lightning tournament at Cazalys Stadium with one win and one loss.

The Mosquitoes, lead by former AFL star Mal Michael in his first appearance for his homeland's national team, came up short against the Port Douglas Crocs, but defeated the North Cairns Tigers in their two appearances. North Cairns will play in the competition's final next weekend, having finished top of their pool, ahead of the Mosquitoes only on percentage.

North Cairns' coach Brett Oakley said in an interview on the AFL Cairns website that his players had taken time to adjust to PNG’s unique brand of football. “All of the players were saying that they were so quick and hard at the football, and it’s hard to compete against them because they play a bit different style of football. They're very talented, that’s for sure.”

The final will see North Cairns take on Centrals Trinity Beach this Saturday at 3pm. PNG will take on South Cairns in the curtain-raiser at 1.30pm. Full scores from the pool rounds follow.

Mt Gravatt mentor David Lake is the new coach of the Papua New Guinea Mosquitoes. Lake, who has taken Mt Gravatt into the AFL Queensland finals series in each of his four years at the club, will oversee the build-up to the International Cup in Melbourne in August 2011.

The 2010 Harmony Cup is fast approaching, with eight teams running out onto the Whitten Oval this Sunday. Among them will be Greece, Italy, Albania, Indonesia, India-Sri Lanka, Israel, and a team drawn from Melbourne's Lebanese community.

With the withdrawal of Team Africa, the eighth side on the day will be playing under the name "Team Harmony", a combined team including players from all cultural backgrounds, including PNG's former AFL star Mal Michael.

Although Sydney is the Australian city more often associated with Lebanese immigration, the Melbourne Lebanese community has produced a few high-profile members, including footy stars Mil Hanna and Bachar Houli, and previous Victorian state premier Steve Bracks. At a suburban footy level, Lebanese players have made a huge impact and can be found at clubs right across Melbourne.

Coordinating the Team Lebanon is Maan Soufan, who previously played with Lebanon at the 2005 Multicultural Cup. Soufan spoke with WFN about the Lebanese team's preparations.

An official rankings table for the nations playing Australian football has been a long-held dream at worldfootynews.com, although we've maintained in the past that this would be an unofficial system at best and mainly based on conjecture. However, we've recently been sent some ideas for how such a system could work.

WFN reader Campbell Homes has been crunching the numbers and has created a rankings system based solely on actual match data, without resorting to estimation.

The rankings are based on full-scale footy, played under or close to IC rules, dating right back to 1994. In spite of how far back the data goes, the rankings are recalculated after every match played, and adapt to current relative strengths very quickly. Matches that will enter the system in the coming months include the GB vs Denmark test in April, the European Championships in August, the US vs Canada test and as many more as we hear about.

All ranking systems will create plenty of discussion, but Campbell's system is the first that WFN has published based on empirical evidence. The full table and a description of how the ranking system works is available at our World Rankings Page, let the comments begin.

The AFL has received 24 nominations for the 25 player squad for the World XVIII team participating in the AFL NAB Under 16 Championships, to be staged in western Sydney later this year.

Dominating submissions are the Canadians and South Africans, with 11 and 8 young men nominated respectively. Also in the mix are Denmark (3), the United States (2) and England (1). Final details were not yet fixed, but the AFL expects additional names from Ireland, China and multicultural Australia. With rapid growth at senior level in Europe in recent years, hopefully the World XVIII in a few years will also have dozens more youth candidates willing and able to travel Down Under.

The nominations range from 15 to 19 years of age (the two international squads have a wider age eligibility than the Australian state and territory sides). Heights range from 164 to 191 cm. At this stage it does look to be a fairly short squad, given most players are 17 or 18 years old, although this is not likely to be an issue in the otherwise Under 16 tournament; it would however have been a useful advantage to field a taller side.

Eligible multicultural Australians will be trialled in the coming weeks, and all the nominations will be reduced to a squad of 25 by the end of March. Full eligibility criteria listed in earlier story here.