World Footy News

A story in the Country Footy section of the Weekly Times highlights a couple of French lads making an impact for Wickliffe-Lake Bolac in the Mininera & District League, country Victoria, coincidentally only about 100 km from Warrnambool, site of the country round of the 2008 International Cup.

Two areas we've particularly focused on for this site are international Australian football and the ongoing development of the sport within Australia, be it plans for AFL clubs on the Gold Coast and West Sydney or the lower tiers such as the addition of the NT Thunder in AFL Queensland's league.

Leading the way for the AFL has been their General Manager of National and International Development, David Matthews. It's pleasing to see the AFL website has conducted a series of interviews with Matthews, covering a wide range of development issues, including all of those that we've previously discussed on this website, but without the large audience that Australia's most popular sporting website can reach.

All of the items discussed regarding international footy we've touched on before with Game Development staff, such as the AFL's hopes to bring Oceania into the elite Under 16 competition, a tender process for IC2011, and South Africa filling the junior void from the cancelling of International Rules with Ireland. But this is the first time the plans have been more widely reported, especially all in one interview, and possibly indicate a firming of some of those plans and a desire to build community support for it. The articles are:

AFL sets sights on Pacific talent pool

AFL says no to reserves league

Heavy hitters: Dave Matthews

It is rare for us to fully reproduce an article from mainstream sites, but as a consolidated summary of how the AFL sees future development it seems worthwhile for the record, so we have done so below.

In the first match of Australian rules football between two Dutch teams, the Utrecht Saints came up against the Rest-of-Holland components of the Flying Dutchmen.

The nine-a-side match at the Olympos Sportcentrum in Utrecht was played on May 9th in sunny conditions, with excited supporters clamouring for a spot in the sun while the two sides clashed.

Right from the first bounce, the Flying Dutchmen, composed of players from the Eindhoven, Amsterdam and Den Haag sides, took control of the match. The Utrecht Saints for their part had four first-timers, who put in impressive performances which demonstrated the progress made in just a few weeks of training.

The second and third quarters saw the Rest of Holland increase their lead, with their own collection of new players acquitting themselves well in their first match.

The final term saw the Saints stage a comeback and keep the game interesting. With four goals, they won the quarter, but with strong defence from the Rest of Holland the game was never in doubt.

The match was the first for the Saints as a stand-alone team, the first of four planned clubs for the DAFA's local league. The other three sides are still on the search for new players, but leagues and clubs across Europe have regularly shown that establishing a local competition has been the best recruiting tool.

Final score: (Rest of the) Flying Dutchmen 14.9 (93) def Utrecht Saints 8.10 (58)

Round One of the AFLG culminated on the weekend of May 9th, with teams in the league's new Second Division taking the field.

The largest Berlin side ever battled the Rheinland B-team through four quarters of intense footy, which saw the Lions manage a 23-point win despite four Lions going to hospital in unrelated accidents.

The Stuttgart Emus in their first official game showed that although they may be new, they’re a team to be reckoned with, beating Munich B’s by 11 points.

In Division One, Rheinland demonstrated they’re still the team to beat, taking out Frankfurt by 9 goals. Up in Hamburg, Munich had to give everything they had to hold on to their 2 point lead late in the last quarter.

Luke McBride from the AFLG spoke with World Footy News about the league's new 2-division structure.

The Irish league's experimental two tier competition is off to a good start, with a record 10 clubs in action. For many years ARFLI has been predicting new clubs but ultimately only been treading water with the new boys either not materialising, not lasting very long, or being offset by a club folding somewhere else. So after a promising start with the first match in Ireland in 2000 and an impressive 7 teams by 2005, by 2008 the total had dropped to 5 clubs taking to the park during the season.

So far the separation into Premiership and Conference divisions seems to have been a successful step towards addressing the problem. Rather than simply have separate regions but then none having very many teams, ARFLI have gone for overlapping concepts. Below we list the teams and describe the interesting new structure.

Punjabi-Australian journalist Manpreet Kaur Singh recently wrote an article for the AFL website, entitled, "Footy in a patka". In it she takes a lighthearted look at how Australian football can help bring people together and break down barriers. She also makes mention of Balraj Singh, a footballer of Punjabi descent, who at his peak was listed on the Adelaide Crows roster.

Manpreet Kaur Singh has previously conducted interviews for SBS radio with Balraj Singh (part of which is in Punjabi) and members of India's coaching and support team at the 2008 International Cup.

The Fiji Daily Post last week revealed that Australian charity, "The Spirit of Sharing" will send a delegation to Fiji's second-largest island - Vanua Levu. The delegation, consisting of charity-founder Peter Cole, his brother John and charity members Darren Mayer and Karl Houben will distribute donated sports equipment to a majority of the island's schools. Whilst in Fiji, John Cole also plans to share Australian Football with the local school children. If you can offer support contact petercole20 [at] hotmail [dot] com

On Saturday 9th, Paris hosted the second round of the inaugural French League. As with the previous round, two games were organised that day.

The first game saw the host team, the Cockerels, taking on the Bombers from Bordeaux. Thanks to their strong midfielders and better skills the Cockerels quickly took control of the game. The Bordeaux players did not surrender and kept on fighting, but could not match the Parisians' play.

Final score: Paris 30.14 (194) d Bordeaux 6.10 (46)

The second game, the Strasbourg Kangourous against the Montpellier Fire Sharks, was much more evenly contested than the first. Despite leading on the scoreboard during the whole game, the Kangourous were never able to secure a good scoring advantage. During the third quarter, the Fire Sharks gave the Kangourous a tough contest and almost took the lead. But the Alsacians were holding on, and in the beginning of the fourth quarter, they scored four goals in a row, giving them the victory.

Final score: Strasbourg 13.14 (92) d Montpellier 11.18 (84)

The Birmingham Bears made the long trip up to Newcastle at the weekend looking to gain some experience in the ARUK National Cup before the start of the league season next week. All but one of the team were going in as rookies, having never played a competitive game before. We were drawn in Pool C, containing Huddersfield Rams and hosts Newcastle Centurions. We knew that we were up against it, with our best chance in all likelihood being against newbies Huddersfield Rams. Thanks to Mat Mitchell for this report.

With recent discussion on the 2011 International Cup, it's timely to have a look back at some of the fun the players had at Brauer College in Warrnambool at one of the functions of IC08. This Youtube posting shows the players dancing while IC08 ground announcer Rod "Grilla" Grljusich belts out a song with the Sky Rockats. Watch out for Brian Dixon and his wife Carmel on the dance floor around 2:30.

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We've previously reported on the upcoming Canadian Nationals and the problem that only Ontario-based clubs look set to attend - see Inaugural Canadian Nationals planned but something is missing. Nevertheless, a big tournament is expected next weekend and it could be the start of a long and successful tradition. The following is a press release from AFL Canada.

On May 16th and 17th, 2009, the first ever annual Australia.com Canadian National Championships of Australian Rules Football, sponsored by Tourism Australia, will be held in Toronto, Ontario.

The tournament will see 8 Australian Rules football teams from across Canada competing over the weekend at Humber North College from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th. It will be a weekend for all to enjoy – we encourage everyone to come out and enjoy the festivities and see our athletes in action. It will be an opportunity for both Canadians and Australians living in Ontario to have fun supporting the mix of Canadian and Australian players, have something to eat and even get involved with the junior football clinics available for kids of all ages.

We've reported previously that the Australian Football League is keen to stage an exhibition match in Shanghai as part of the 2010 Expo. We've also reported the Federal Government is now supporting Aussie Rules as a potential export product.

These two factors seem to be coming together, with renewed reports that a match will go ahead. An article in the Herald Sun, Australian Rules Football to be played in China, quotes Australian Trade Minister Simon Crean, currently in China, as saying that "It is a great way to make Australian rules known in China," and "It's a great game, it's fast and exciting, but people need to see it first-hand". Writer Gerard McManus speculates that long term, the AFL may have its eye on selling TV rights the emerging economic superpower. The suggestion is that the game would feature Melbourne against Brisbane or new-boys the Gold Coast.

A lot more quotes and information can be read in AFL eyes Shanghai showcase, by Michael Sainsbury, including Crean stating, "Look at all the people. Anyone who watches a game of Aussie Rules football falls in love with it," and "This will be an expo that has 70 million people. If we can show the game played on their soil with their audience I think it would take off."

No word yet, but wouldn't it be tremendous to feature China versus Japan as the curtain raiser. That would give China two years to bring themselves up to Japan's level - difficult but possible if enough resources are committed.