World Footy News

The Jakarta Bintangs have for the past 12 years conducted an AFL Grand Final breakfast in Jakarta an event which has grown to be arguably the largest AFL Grand Final function held outside Australia.

This year was no exception though the Bintangs, always the innovators, seem to have pulled off a coup by having the Jakarta Globe as one of their sponsors.

The English language daily newspaper, which has mainstream circulation in Jakarta, had a 4-page liftout on the AFL Grand Final, including full teams, analysis and predictions along with a write-up of the Bintangs' current progress in developing the game locally in Indonesia. I would venture to say that the coverage exceeded that of most of the Sydney and Brisbane dailies.

The piece-de-resistance however, was at the conclusion of the game, where those who were at the Bintangs function in the Shangrila Hotel were presented with a Jakarta Globe Cats 2009 Premiers poster in the style of the late WEG of the Melbourne Herald.

Outstanding!

The draw for the 2009 EU Cup is online, with the 15 sides divided into three pools of four and one of three.

The match schedule and pools are available on the Footy Record here. Scores will be updated via TFR throughout the tournament.

2009 has been a great season for the Paris Cockerels who confirmed their leadership in French footy, winning both the 2009 French Championship and the French Cup. The Parisians remain undefeated in their domestic competition, but are still looking for a win against a non French team.

The French footy community has elected to change to a winter season for 2009-10, featuring Paris, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier and Perpignan, together with the Andorra Crows. As part of their pre-season warm up, the Cockerels hosted their northern rival, the Flying Dutchmen, for a now traditional pre-season friendly.

Eager to win this game, the Parisians were off to a flying start, leading 4 goals to none after ten minutes, something the Cockerels are not familiar with when it comes to Europeans teams. But the Dutch did not back down and came back to only one goal at quarter time. The second quarter saw the Dutchmen taking the lead, leaving their French opponents only a handful of points behind.

The game got away from the Cockerels in the third quarter with the Dutch kicking 4 goals to none. As usual, the French fought back in the last quarter, kicking 3 goals to one thanks to their Icelandic captain Pall Finnsson, but the Dutch had score too many behinds during the game for the Cockerels to regain the lead. Once again the French had to let the game go to a stronger Dutch team.

The final score: Paris Cockerels 9.8 (62) v Flying Dutchmen 11.21 (87).

The Parisians will now focus on their second pre-season friendly against Danish club the Århus Bombers in October. The 2009-10 French championship is scheduled to begin in November, as is the second Paris International Rules Cup against the French capital's resident GAA club.

In the fourth and final preview of teams for the 2009 EU Cup, WFN spoke to Luke McBride from Germany, Dante Zandveld from the Netherlands, Ronan Moran from the Irish Exiles and Jono Newman from the EU Crusaders.

The Germans are undefeated in international competition this year, having hosted a full-field test against Finland and a 9-a-side clash with the Czech Republic. Whilst coach McBride is an Australian, their full squad are Germans and they will be very keen to show they have what it takes to match it with the best in Europe.

The Dutch have had a year of growth, laying the foundations for a local league to commence next year. Their national side the Flying Dutchmen has played friendlies against the Paris, Rheinland and Berlin clubs during 2008, being undefeated thus far.

The Irish Exiles, a team formed mainly of Irishmen playing Aussie Rules in the UK, could be a very strong side depending who they can bring to Zagreb. Their only match to date was a clash against the 2008 EU Cup champions the England Dragonslayers in early September, where the Irish showed plenty of class in taking out victory.

Finally to the Crusaders, who perhaps fittingly in the first year the EU Cup is held outside the EU, are captained by a resident of non-EU nation Switzerland and are largely made up of citizens of non-EU nation Croatia. The Crusaders have a mix of both experienced hands and newcomers and could surprise a few sides.

With the Crusaders, the tournament will feature 15 sides, with Catalonia and Russia missing from the original 16 sides hoped for by organisers. The Catalans pulled out very recently due to financial issues, whilst the Russian squad, a project of a group of Rugby league players from Moscow, ultimately couldn't make the starting line after much initial promise.

There were a few international connections on Grand Final day for the 2009 AFL season. Once upon a time it was difficult to find any.

Alas for St Kilda's Irish recruit, Colm Begley, the story of his year continued, unable to break into the powerful Saints side for the Grand Final. Nor could James Gwilt, of Papuan heritage.

The day was supposed to allow the finalists of the national Under 16s competition to play on the MCG, but the bad weather saw a late decision to move both divisions to Visy Park. Papua New Guinea's David Meli (pictured), international scholarship listed by Essendon, play well for Queensland in their win over NSW. He was mentioned in a match report as being amongst the best, although not in the match report best players.

Later in the day Canadian Mike Pyke represented Sydney in the traditional half-time sprint and it promised to be intriguing to see how well the big man could run. Sadly he slipped at the starters gun, never recovered and soon disappeared from view. We'll never know how he would have gone - maybe next year.

Of course plenty of Scandinavian viewers would have been happy with the result of the big match, with a long association now between Geelong and the Danish league (in particular through Cats star Jimmy Bartel, a visitor to several of the Scandinavian leagues).

The USAFL has announced the seedings for the 2009 National Championships to be held in Mason, Ohio with a record number of teams playing this year. The seeding Committee has finalized the seeding pools for almost all divisions, with Division IV and the women's division still requiring some final revisions (added when available).

As always, this has been a difficult task, especially given the complexity inherent in a national competition (e.g., trying to compare teams that never played each other during the season, or did not play many or any games during the season). The goal of the seedings is to promote a lively and balanced competition based on the information available. The nature of this task is inherently imperfect, and although we know this subject could be fodder for endless debate, we assure you that we have done our best.

The seedings and some rationale behid them can be viewed below.

Port Adelaide AFL professional, Suva-born David Rodan, and his fiancée, Carla Di Pasquale recently travelled to Suva, Fiji, to promote the code and talk through the aims and objectives of the game they hope will bring the youth of Fiji into Aussie Rules football.

Rodan and Pasquale plan, with the assistance of Port Adelaide and the Western Bulldogs football clubs, to run clinics at schools around the country, aimed predominantly at 14-15 year old boys. The footy clinics are planned for once a week in schools, taking on up to 90 kids per session.

WFN have previously had a detailed look at 3 of the competitions in NZ - Auckland, Otago and Waikato. Here is a brief synopsis of the Canterbury Australian Football League based in Christchurch on the South Island.

The Geelong Football Club has secured its second flag in three years with a thrilling come from behind victory over the devastated St Kilda Football Club, which was gallant all day after being the dominant team of 2009. The final margin of 12 points didn't reflect the pulsating final minutes when there was nothing between the sides.

In what would come as a shock to most, Irishman Martin Clarke has decided not to pursue a new playing contract and return to his homeland after three seasons with Collingwood. Clarke, who turns 22 in November, played 46 AFL games with the Magpies after he came to Collingwood at the end of 2006 from County Down on a two-year international rookie contract.

He made his rapid ascent to senior AFL football with his debut in round 12, 2007 against Sydney after being temporarily elevated to the senior list due to a long-term injury, and earned a permanent spot on the senior list for the 2008 and 2009 seasons. Clarke’s last AFL game was against Sydney in round 12 this year, and he was named as an emergency for the preliminary final against Geelong.

He will return to Ireland to study teaching and be with his family.

The 2009 Australian Football League Grand Final will be played between two of the most dominant teams in recent memory. St Kilda finished the minor round with 20 wins and 2 narrow losses. Geelong will be playing in their third Grand Final in a row and have an imperious record over 2007-2009. The football public await an intense battle of the sort seen in 2005 and 2006 when Sydney and West Coast battled out thrillingly tight contests.

However, the result doesn't always live up to the hype as one side cracks under the weight of expectation, but in terms of season form these are the two power sides of 2009 and the odds are good for a classic match. And despite it often being said that Grand Finals regularly have blow outs, out of the last 12 AFL Grand Finals only 4 have been decided by 40 points or more, with 3 being by 10 points or less.

In worldfootynews.com's third preview of teams for the 2009 EU Cup, we spoke with coach of the England Dragonslayers (and new assistant coach of the GB Bulldogs) Robert Fielder about their preparations for defending the title, as well as Juan Martin and Antonio Avila in Spain and Doug Pate in Andorra about their respective teams.

Footy in the Madrid area took an important next step this year with the creation of a second team and the commencement of a local league. The Andorrans completed their debut season in the Catalan league and will be keen to make a good impression in their first EU Cup appearance.

In other EU Cup news, team Catalonia have announced their withdrawal due to financial difficulties, meaning organisers are currently looking at 14 national sides, plus the EU Crusaders to be confirmed. A finalised draw will be available soon.

Our final preview, covering the Irish Exiles, Germany and the Netherlands, will be on WFN soon.