World Footy News

The Orang Eire (expat Irish in Malaysia) narrowly defeated the Malaysian Warriors to level the 3 match Finnegans Cup Series at one-all in an exciting International Rules match at Alice Smith gound in Kuala Lumpur on July 25th. This sets up a thrilling finale, to be played November 7th. The Warriors hold the Cup and it will all be on the line for the Gaelic boys.

An under-23 AFL Oceania side has been put together, with players gathered from New Zealand, Nauru, Samoa, Fiji and Tonga supplementing the bulk of the squad from Papua New Guinea. The team will tackle a North Queensland U23 side, an area noted for its strong growth in indigenous talent. The game will be played at Cazaly Stadium, Cairns.

The match is a joint initiative with the Federal Government, to complement the 2009 Pacific Islands Forum being held in Cairns, with Prime Ministers from across the South Pacific hopefully in attendance.

The teams will be coached by longtime Brisbane Lions Premiership teammates, Mal Michael (The Islanders) and Daryl White (North Queensland). AFL Oceania manager Andrew Cadzow will be Michael's assistant. Michael is part Papuan and White has indigenous Australian heritage.

The Islanders team has 8 Australian-based PNG scholarship holders, including PNG's best on ground in the IC08 grand final Donald Barry, and his teammates at that tournament Peter Labi and the Gold Coast-signed Amua Pirika. Players of note from elsewhere include other 2008 International Cup players Andriu Sucu (NZ), Jonas Amwana and Johnny Dagiaro (Nauru) and Sauluitoga (Samoa). The team has been selected with an eye to the future, with many of the players considered promising athletes, not necessarily the "best of the best" footballers at this point in time, although plenty of them are also good players.

The match will be played this evening in Cairns, Wednesday 5th August, entry free and the public welcome.

A report on New Zealand's selections can be found here and talented young Fijian Dylan Wolfgramm here.

Well known Jakarta Bintang, Craig Senger tragically lost his life in the recent bombing of the Hotel Marriott in Jakarta. All football followers in Asia have been greatly saddened by this news, and condolences have flowed to the Bintangs, his wife and family.

To help celebrate Craig's life, the Vietnam Swans will play a memorial match against the Lao Elephants on Saturday 8th August in Hanoi honouring Craig and other victims of the Jakarta Bombings.

To recognise the positive impact Craig had in his life on others, his wife Kate has set up the Craig Senger Indonesia Memorial Fund with the assistance of Westpac Bank.

In a return to the status quo, the United States Revolution have defeated Canada's Northwind in the international in Mason, Ohio, USA.

An early report from usfooty.com reports that:

On a hot muggy day at Mason Sports Complex the new faced USA Revolution defeated the Canadian Northwind team. The returning Revolution players spearheaded by Luke Nemeth lead the way; however the deciding factor was the outstanding performance by a number of rookies. The Revolution got off to a great start kicking 4.4, to 1.1 in the first quarter. They continued to lead comfortably for the rest of the day. The Revolution backline were outstanding in the second quarter, keeping the Canadian National team to just one more goal. The Revolution’s fitness, teamwork and physicality showed in the second half, as they ran out comfortable winners.

United States 12.11 (83)
Canada 5.3 (33)

The Beijing Bombers this year kicked off their first ever Metro League season, culminating on the weekend of July 18th with the DongCheng Demons finishing top of the table and taking the 2009 title.

The Beijing AFL's spring season saw teams - Dongcheng, the AZ Chaoyang Cats and the Santa Fe Saints - playing each other twice over three rounds, each side having one host round where they played both rival teams.

Over forty footballers pulled on the boots over the course of the three rounds, including around a dozen local Chinese players. Following the successful first-up season, an autumn league will be held as well this year, with matches on August 15, September 19 and October 10.

A full review of the whole season is available from the Beijing Bombers' website.

Last year saw the creation of the Lao Elephants, the first-ever Australian football club in the Lao PDR. The Phants, quickly famous worldwide for their distinctive pink and grey jumpers, impressed on the Asian footy circuit in 2008, putting in a strong showing at the Asian Championships and wining the Indochina Cup in Phnom Penh.

The Lao Elephants currently have around thirty players on their list, including around twenty-five expats from Australia, the USA and Great Britain, plus four or five Lao nationals.

However, the squad is spread across a wide geographical area, with about 18 hours worth of bus trip separating the Northerners in Vientiane and Luang Prabang from the Southerners, who are mainly Australians working at the mines in the town of Sepon.

The first half of 2009 has seen a quiet patch for the Elephants as far as international touring is concerned, but in its place on May 23rd this year they held their first-ever domestic clash, with the Northerners traveling down the Mekong to take on the Southerners in the city of Savannakhet.

Press release from the AFL

Australian Football League Chief Operating Officer Gillon McLachlan today announced the AFL had agreed to a new and exclusive deal with ESPN for its broadcast rights into the United Kingdom and Ireland for the remainder of 2009 through to the end of the 2011 AFL season.

The agreement will see ESPN air three matches each round of the home and away season(s), as well as a number of Finals, including the Grand Final. All matches will be broadcast on ESPN’s new channel, which is set to launch on Monday 3 August on Sky Channel 417, and will also be available in High Definition via Sky Channel 443. Coverage will kick off with the Round 19 blockbuster between finals contenders Carlton and Geelong on Friday 7 August, live from the MCG.

This weekend sees several international matches, with Germany and the Czech Republic playing in Mitteleschenbach and the Jakarta and Singapore clubs fighting it out at Cibubur Oval in Jakarta, Indonesia. Even bigger still is the return to action of Canada and the United States for their first international since IC08.

Traditionally the US Revolution has been too strong for Canada's Northwind, but in 2007 that changed with the northerners winning for the first time, tasting success on home soil. The US gets a chance for revenge in this Ohio match, and with Canada finishing 6th at IC08, just one spot above the US, a close match could be expected. However that was Canada's best finish and they seem to be on the rise, where asfor the US 7th spot represented a disappointing slide. Was 2007/08 a permanent crossing point in the trajectory of their football abilities, or an aberration that the Revos will turn around?

Wolverhampton has become the latest in a string of cities in the English Midlands to create an Aussie Rules club to join the ARUK's Central Division in time for the 2010 season.

The Wolverhampton Wolverines, as the club will be known, are looking to recruit early with training sessions being planned for the end of this summer. Added to this, regular friendly matches being played over the course of winter 09/10 should see the Wolverines in competitive shape come the season's start in April 2010.

The friendlies will be against established sides such as the 2009 Central Division ladder toppers Huddersfield Rams and second placed Birmingham Bears, as well as other newly-formed teams such as Cambridge Hippos.

The Wolverines' founding member Ian Mitchell has played the 2009 season for the Birmingham Bears. Mitchell tells us "I'm keen to see the sport expand across the Midlands and the UK as a whole, and I see The Wolverines being an excellent starting point for this in Wolverhampton."

The Wolverines are recruiting for players of any level of experience from experts to complete beginners, volunteers to help run the non-playing side of the club and also any potential sponsors or donors to fund the initial set-up of the club.

Anyone interested in playing footy in Wolverhampton can contact the club via their Facebook page.

The Czech Lions will be taking the Autobahn to the town of Mitteleschenbach, near Nürnberg, this weekend for a Central European showdown with the Germany's national team - the Black Eagles.

In a first for Czech footy, this year's Lions squad will be built around locals and other non-Australian talent, with only a handful of Aussies filling the gaps. The Germans for their part will be fielding a team of home-grown talent, as they have done in all tests since 2007.

The August 1st match came about through an offer to host a match of footy by the organisers of the Nürnberg Australian Festival. While 2009 is the first time the festival has included a match of Aussie Rules, the whole event is now in its third year, organised by a group of local businesses - including an Emu Farm - and the local Nürnberg Australian community.

In a sensational case of switching codes, the AFL today welcomed the signing of Rugby League Australian representative Karmichael Hunt to play with the Gold Coast Football Club and also to take on a game development role with the AFL and AFL Queensland. AFL Chief Executive Officer Andrew Demetriou said the signing of Karmichael Hunt (pictured with coach Guy McKenna) was a coup for the club and showed that it was an innovative club that was prepared to look outside the square in recruiting the best talent.

Mr Demetriou said Hunt was an exciting AFL prospect who had welcomed the prospect of staying and playing elite sport in Queensland and also in helping to promote and develop the AFL code in the state through a development role with the AFL and AFL Queensland. He said while it was not unusual for junior athletes from other codes to cross to AFL, it was the first time an established rugby league player had crossed over since Ray Smith in the 1970s who crossed codes to play more than 100 games with Essendon and Melbourne.

“When it was reported that Karmichael was considering changing codes and moving overseas and that he was serious about considering a career in the AFL, we were happy to look at ways that he could play with Gold Coast Football Club and work with the AFL to promote the code in his home state of Queensland,” Mr Demetriou said. Hunt, born in Auckland, reportedly played something like 9 games of Aussie Rules in his final year of High School, in Brisbane.

The 2009 International Rules Series will be deferred for 12 months, the Australian Football League (AFL) and the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) announced today. AFL Chief Executive Andrew Demetriou said he had spoken to GAA Director General Paraic Duffy on a number of occasions over the last week and the two organisations had agreed to defer the series to October 2010, with two Tests to be played then in Ireland.

Australia had been due to tour Ireland after both country's respective seasons conclude this September, but Mr Demetriou said the world economic situation had caused a major re-think for the AFL, prompting it to seek to defer the series for 12 months. Mr Demetriou said the decision to postpone the series for 12 months had been a difficult decision to make as the AFL valued the GAA relationship very strongly, and the AFL had given its commitment it would tour Ireland for two Test matches in October 2010.