World Footy News

After Papua New Guinea's stirring victory over New Zealand in the 2008 International Cup Grand Final at the MCG last Friday, AFL Ambassador and legend of the game, Kevin Sheedy, headed down to the change-rooms to commiserate with the Kiwis and award the PNG players their medals.

His talk included a very exciting prospect for international footy - the possibility of the two teams clashing on ANZAC Day at the Melbourne Cricket Ground as a curtain-raiser to the annual blockbuster between Essendon and Collingwood. ANZAC Day commemorates the sacrifices of Australian and New Zealand soldiers and the annual football fixture has become the biggest match on the AFL calendar outside of finals, with 90,000 fans regularly attending.

Many Australians are also conscious of the efforts made by Papuans in World War Two, particularly in assisting Australia defend its northern approaches through caring for injured soldiers. Thus a football clash between New Zealand and PNG is a natural fit for the big day, especially since they are currently the two strongest international Aussie Rules nations. On a personal note, it has always been noticeable that there is not enough emphasis in Australia on the NZ in ANZAC, so this would be a nice remedy for that too.

Sheedy appeared to have the support of AFL National and International Development General Manage David Matthews, but did stress there was a lot of work to be done before such a fixture would be a reality, and only put a target date of the next couple of years on the game, so there are no guarantees.

Nevertheless, what an exciting step this could be. As pointed out by a colleague, unlike matches such as the AFL final that followed the IC08 Grand Final, a large part of the crowd turns up early on ANZAC Day, often coming from marches and other events, so what a wonderful opportunity to showcase international Australian football - let's hope this match happens.

Listen to Kevin Sheedy's announcement

The match to decide third and fourth place was always going to be interesting. Ireland were the inaugural International Cup winners. In their heyday they looked unbeatable with a steady league, players with experience in a similar sport (Gaelic football) and arguably more familiarity with Australian football than their rivals. Their opponents, South Africa had finished last in 2002, fielding a team very new to football, and consequently suffered losses of 162, 27, 77 and 128 points.

Six years later things were a little different. The Irish were expected to take a slide down the ladder. Their league at best has been treading water and was only starting to again find its feet. The Warriors had only managed fourth place at the 2005 tournament, and in the years between had lost their first ever match to long-time rivals Great Britain. On the other hand AFL South Africa now boasted 14,000 registered players, they had won two games at the 2005 tournament (including their first-ever victory) and for the past few years had played several matches against Australian youth sides, providing invaluable experience.

Both countries had been impressive so far at the 2008 tournament. Ireland comprehensively beat Sweden and Finland, and overcame a much-improved Canada. Whilst they went down to New Zealand and missed another shot at the Grand Final, they were by no means disgraced. South Africa too won all their pool matches, and beat the USA for the first time, but were outclassed by PNG in their Semi Final.

In the end it took a 25 metre penalty and a kick after the siren, but South Africa won the match by the slimmest of margins, a solitary point.

Additional reporting by Brett Northey.

The faster and more skilful Nauru overran a Canada which did not give up at Ransford Oval on Friday in their classification match to decide the admirable finishing positions of 5th and 6th.

Play on football, faster movement of the ball and faster leg speed, particularly more run off half-back, kept the Nauru team in front. The Canadians moved the ball forward more slowly, while Nauru was able to switch play effectively against their bigger opponents.

UAE Heat have won the 2009 Asian Championships held in Singapore on September 6th, comfortably defeating pre-tournament favourites Singapore in the final 10.0.60 to 3.6.24.

Played in good conditions before a very healthy crowd, the Heat were simply too good. Kicking with the aid of the breeze in the first half and with their midfielders well on top, the Heat were able to rattle on five goals before Singapore were able to reply. At half time, the Heat led 6.0 to 1.2, and the Wombats faced a mighty task.

Further salt was rubbed into the wounds when the Heat goaled early in the second half to put the game beyond doubt. To their credit the Wombats fought back, but it was clear the Heat had too much run, were too fit and too good around the ground. The Wombats goaled twice, but the boys from Dubai iced the game with the equivalent reply late in the half.

Pictures courtesy of Mark Stennett of the Malaysia Warriors.

Additional reporting by Brett Northey.

When the USA team came out of the blocks with early goals and Japan had no reply, it seemed that the writing was on the wall for the Samurai.

That was how the game turned out. Lacking four top players from the team which convincingly defeated Samoa, players who had only a week’s leave, undermanned Japan was no match for the stronger and fitter Americans.

Perhaps the Japanese had run out of run. Or perhaps McAlister Oval is narrower than Ransford on which they had used speed to defeat the larger Samoans. Certainly the Americans, one of the pre-tournament favourites, delivered one of their best showings of the series.

Last Friday saw Denmark and Sweden, traditional rivals in just about every sport ever invented, clash for what would effectively be the right to call themselves reigning champion of Scandinavian footy. After finishing third in their respective pools, Sweden and Denmark had both been defeated in their first-round finals matches, leaving them to play off for 11th spot overall and a lot of pride was on the line for both sides.

The Danes have had the edge over the Elks in most tests between the two nations, and went into this match as favourites. Even so, the difference on the day was far greater than the onlookers had anticipated, with the Vikings cruising to a 101-point victory.

Great Britain triumphed against Samoa in one of the three early classification matches at Royal Park last Friday. The day saw each country compete to decide their final finishing positions at the 2008 International Cup; in this case ninth and tenth spots.

Ironically three years earlier at the previous tournament Samoa beat Great Britain to clinch fifth spot. Whilst both countries have suffered a slide down the ladder, if anyone needed convincing that the standard of play has improved, this British side was arguably better than their previous two, and they played a Samoan team minus current World Team representative Fia Too-too (who returned to Samoa suddenly for family reasons) and many of their Australian-based players from previous International Cups.

As two of the freshest teams at the International Cup, India's Tigers and China's Red Demons both faced a huge learning curve on the field. When they faced off at Royal Park on Friday, it was a strong contest between two sides who had improved immensely over the past two weeks.

Some inaccuracy in front of goal by the Chinese saw the Indians with a two-point break at quarter time, but from then on the Red Demons got their noses in front and kept a slight advantage over the Tigers for the remainder of the game, eventually finishing with a jubilant 14-point win, their first-ever in International Footy.

A tired and battered Finnish side fought bravely to the end on Friday, with almost the entire squad either injured, battling the flu, or both. With the bare minimum 18 on the field, the Icebreakers ended their first International Cup campaign with a 12-goal loss to the Peace Team, but never gave up.

The Peace Team were also looking battered, with broken noses, sore knees and strapped shoulders, but the mood in Dipper's camp was extremely buoyant right from the opening bounce, with a few new fans making the trip up from Warrnambool and plenty of noise and smiles from the first middle-eastern squad to appear at an International Cup.

The Adelaide Crows will take a chance on Irishman Brian Donnelly and rookie list him in this year’s rookie draft. The 20 year old Cooley Kickhams gaelic footballer trialled earlier in the year in Adelaide along with Carl Dias who will not be listed by the Crows at this stage. On the Irish Herald.ie website Adelaide’s football manager John Reid said "It is an exciting step for this club to take but although we think Brian has the potential to develop quickly we also have realistic expectations"

Donnelly told The Argus that the Adelaide club gave him no indications that they would make him an offer “I had no idea. I was just waiting for the call…I’m very happy with the news, and everyone at home is delighted” The Crows take on Collingwood at AAMI Stadium today in the First Elimination final in Adelaide.

The AFL has once again named a World Team from the sides competing at the AFL International Cup. The players were announced at the Official Dinner at the Palladium at Crown on Thursday night, with players presented with their jumpers.

Unlike previous "team of the tournament" type awards, the players selected were placed in playing positions, and it was accepted that some of the lower ranked sides would be without representatives.

Samoa's Fia Too-too was named on the half-back flank, making it a remarkable three from three. Unfortunately he had already returned home to Samoa for family reasons (a birthday) so was not present for the team photo.

The World Team, in positions, is shown below.

With the Grand Final completed we can now reveal the final finishing positions for the 2008 Australian Football International Cup. Match reports for the final round games will follow over the next couple of days.

1. Papua New Guinea
2. New Zealand
3. South Africa
4. Ireland
5. Nauru
6. Canada
7. USA
8. Japan
9. Great Britain
10. Samoa
11. Denmark
12. Sweden
13. Peace Team
14. Finland
15. China
16. India

Here are some brief thoughts on the final rankings.