World Footy News

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.

After being signed to a two-year deal with Collingwood after last season, former Marist basketballer, Shae McNamara, has been adjusting to Melbourne's trams, it's footy culture, its favored pastime and its most storied club.

"Once I got here in Melboune in November, I had to not only soak up the footy culture and know what I'm doing on the field, but learn and know how these Aussies tick! They are very similar to us, but with the "tall poppy syndrome" you have to watch what you say and do, so you don't come off as a you-know-what."

"It's very different from the American culture where they hype you up and over feed your ego as opposed to here where you have to earn your stripes before you can have a swagger and even after all that they will still put you in your place if you think you're bigger or better then the rest, and rightly so. To be quite honest, no one likes a jerk."

McNamara feels very lucky that his transition to Melbourne and to footy has gone well so far. "My girlfriend came out here with me and so it's been a great transition. I've always been the type of guy that finds it easy to adapt to a new culture and make friends and more importantly not get too home sick. It's easier said than done, but I always knew it was chapters in my life and it wasn't going to be forever. So I enjoy it and take it all in, because I know I am living a dream!"

In ground-breaking news, a senior Oceania Cup will be played every three years in the year prior to the International Cup.

Supplementing this much-awaited regular competition is likely to be an international fixture held in the year after the International Cup. The first senior Oceania Cup will be hosted by Auckland, New Zealand, in November 2010.

The AFLNZ U20 National Provincial Championships are to be played this weekend in Wellington, March 13th and 14th 2010, at Hutt Park. These will comprise the Best U20 players from the Auckland, Canterbury and Wellington provinces with the NZ U16 side, who played at the Oceania U16 Championships in Fiji during December 2009, also involved.

As expected, Papua New Guinea has contributed a large number of nominations (17) to the initial Pacific squad to compete in the AFL NAB Under 16 Championships in western Sydney in July this year. The original squad was named after the Oceania Youth Cup in Fiji in December 2009, but PNG were a late withdrawal. With a very successful junior program including the Coca Cola Pathway, the addition of future PNG Mosquito stars to the team will strengthen it considerably.

The AFL has also confirmed that the squad, variously described as the Oceania, Pacific or Pacific Islands team, will in fact be called the South Pacific, better reflecting its makeup.

The current squad (and likely final numbers in brackets) is made up of:

Papua New Guinea 17 (8), New Zealand 9 (4), Tonga 8 (4), Samoa 6 (4), Nauru 6 (3), Fiji 6 (2) for a total of 52 in the squad, to be trimmed to a final 25.

The South Pacific coach has not been named yet. Former Sydney Swan Michael O'Loughlin will coach the World XVIII, consisting of players from outside the South Pacific zone. More details of those nominations tomorrow.

AFL legend Peter Daicos has agreed to be Gateshead Miners ARFC patron for 2010. Commonly known as the Macedonian Marvel because of his parents' place of origin, the mulleted Daicos is known as one of the most exciting footballers of all time - with an incredible knack to score goals from seemingly impossible angles, and at crucial game-defining moments.

The Gateshead Miners were formed in 2009, and compete in England's Northern Premiership against clubs from the cities of Newcastle, Hartlepool, Durham and Middlesbrough.

Today's The Australian newspaper reported that the AFL's Western Bulldogs are pushing hard to take matches for premiership points to New Zealand's capital city Wellington. The deal would see the Bulldogs play two home matches at Wellington's Basin Reserve, possibly as early as next year.

The Dogs currently sell two home games interstate, one to Darwin and the other to Canberra. The idea is to take those games to the New Zealand capital and attempt to build some sort of regular sporting and cultural event for the city around the idea of premiership points being fought over on foreign soil.

Bulldogs' chief executive Campbell Rose outlined the proposal in a direct letter to NZ prime minister John Key, with endorsement from the AFL.

The full story can be read at Bulldogs push for games in New Zealand.

The Dulwich Dragons will this year enter the AFL London's Conference (2nds) Division, after playing in the Social (3rds) League since their formation in 2008.

Club stalwart Alistair Chisholm explains that the Dragons were created by two footy enthusiasts who decided the London league needed to spread away from the traditional Aussie expat areas in the city's west.

Two years later, the Dragons have over sixty players on their squad list and are planning on playing in both the 2nd and 3rd divisions on the AFL London, after a strong showing in 2009 despite some early fixturing hiccups.

WFN has now completed its Country Snapshots section for Europe.

Other completed regions are Africa, Oceania, the Middle East and North, Central and South America. They are available from the pulldown menu above titled Countries.

Over the coming months we hope to finish the last region - Asia.

As always, let us know if there are any significant errors or omissions. We do realise that the Census data (2004) is well out of date, and there is some more recent data available. We'll hopefully address that at the end of the year.