World Footy News

An unlikely sequence of results in the final round of the 2008 Australian Football League season has resulted in a first round finals draw that does not feature any match in Melbourne on Saturday. This upsets the AFL's plans to stage the International Cup Grand Final as a curtain raiser to such a final at the MCG - the match was always expected to occur then, but was subject to the clause "to be confirmed".

Fortunately the Second Qualifying Final between Hawthorn and Western Bulldogs is set down for the MCG from 7.50pm on the Friday, 5th September. Preliminary confirmation from the AFL is that the International Cup match will therefore be a curtain raiser to this match. More details when available.

Saturday, September 6th sees the 9th edition of the Asian Championships, the holy grail of football in this part of the world. This year sees 10 teams competing in two groups under a lightning premiership type format. Whilst in the past the all-important draw has been random, this year sees the finalists of the 2007 Championship, Hong Kong and Bali deliberately drawn in opposing groups. A further innovation is the introduction of semi-finals where, in a cross-over manner, the top two teams of each group will meet, the winners to contest the Grand Final.

Because of the intense nature of the competition, being played over one day, often in extreme weather conditions, fitness and depth of squad are often major contributing factors in determining the outcome. So far, only 3 teams, Hong Kong (3), Singapore (3) and Indonesia (playing as a combined Jakarta-Bali side) have won the Asian Championships, though Bali have finished runner-up in the past 3 years.

The 2008 championships will be held on the grounds of the Singapore Polo Club and will offer a great venue for the Asian Champs including for the first time 5 star corporate and VIP entertainment plus a dedicated kids play area with jumping castle, face painters and more.

The 2008 Australian Football International Cup has travelled down to Warrnambool for the crucial final round of pool matches. Based on the original seeding, top plays second in each of the four pools, which should see some great matches, and two of them are really too close to call. Rain greeted the players who arrived via two train services courtesy of V-Line. Wet and windy weather is predicted for Monday's matches, which will test even the best teams and should help the struggling sides limit the damage.

The South Africa Lions defeated the Denmark Vikings in tough conditions for football at Geelong’s Kardinia Park West Oval yesterday. With a strong wind towards the southern end of the ground, the Vikings did most of the attacking in a tight first quarter, but from then on the Lions gained the edge, eventually running out 45 point winners.

Ed: Many thanks to guest reporter Marty Davies for the report and photos, stepping in at short notice to cover the match for WFN and giving our other reporter present a welcome break.

ABC Radio National’s The Sports Factor ran a good story on the progress of FootyWild in South Africa and mentioned the International Cup, in their weekly program last Friday morning at 8.30AM. Audio and Transcripts are available clicking the link in the first line of this story. Lets hope The Sports Factor follows this up with a report on the International Cup itself.

In other mainstream media news, veteran Melbourne football writer, Mike Sheahan, who previously could perhaps have been labelled a sceptic on international footy, appears to have had a conversion experience with his visit to Royal Park last week. Writing in the The Herald Sun he compared the standard exhibited by the more established nations as equivalent to Victorian Amateur League B grade – a very respectable standard indeed and encouraged readers to get along and see the games for themselves.

Most of the international teams had heard that heading down the coast of Victoria for the next rounds of matches in the International Cup could result in wet weather footy, and that certainly looks on the cards.

The teams made the approximately 3 hour train journey courtesy of two V/Line services, with early morning and mid-morning departures. worldfootynews.com joined the second group which included the Americans, Canadians, British, South Africans, Chinese, Indians, Nauruans and Japanese.

The International Cup teams attended the Telstra Dome last night to parade at half time, and to watch a great football spectacle, if not a great game. The great expectation of seeing Hawthorn star Lance Franklin and Carlton star Brendan Fevola achieve their 100th goal for the season drew a full house of over 49,000. Franklin achieved his in the first quarter and we have no official confirmation that any of the International Cup representatives were among the approximately 5000 people who rushed onto the ground to congratulate him (though there were reports that the Samoans were amongst them).

Fevola failed, just, to reach the mark himself at the end of the match, but the chance of the double kept the crowd on the edge of their seats. The Parade of Nations at half time saw all nations march out in alphabetical order (and included multicultural division teams - even Tonga whose attendance has been the source some mystery). There were some mixed responses to nations including some (hopefully good natured and based on sporting competitiveness) boos for NZ, Great Britain and the USA. The nations all assembled in the centre of the ground to be introduced before marching off again.

The Friday match at the Western Oval between International Cup debutante Finland, most of whom have been playing the game for around a year, and the experienced Irish team was seen as a mismatch. The scoreboard might confirm that.

However, in play, the Finns, with a bumping tradition from ice hockey, harried the Irish all day, a team with its own national bumping tradition drawn from Gaelic Football.

The Finns lacked both on-field tactical nous in taking the ball forward and the players who could execute in the forward line, but they kept the pressure on the Irish all day, leading to sloppy ball handling and missed passes from the boys in green. After the match coach "Izzy" Barker explained that after their big loss in round 1 the team had sat down and focussed on what each individual was going to do to stop such a blow out again. That meant harassing the Irish, forcing them wide and employing a fair bit of flooding.

As was expected 2005 International Cup champions New Zealand comprehensively defeated India in their Pool A match on Friday.

The Falcons dominated the match from start to finish, with the Indians struggling to get the ball past the centre. Whilst New Zealand missed their first few shots of the game, they were extremely accurate in front of goals from thereon in (almost 80% of shots at goal, were goals).

There's a growing awareness in Australia of the need to actively encourage immigrant populations to take up the great Australian game of football. In the past it was somewhat taken for granted that people new to the country would slowly embrace Aussie Rules, but these days with so many sports on offer and soccer much more established, that assumption can't be made. For this reason and with more lofty aims of helping new arrivals integrate into society, multicultural footy development is a growing area, especially in Melbourne (but is also likely to be a core focus for the proposed new western Sydney AFL club).

This pursuit has seen four games scheduled during the International Cup as Multicultural Challenge matches, as an adjunct to the main tournament - the teams are not part of the main draw. Yesterday on McAlister Oval at Royal Park in Melbourne Team Africa took on Team Asia, with players drawn from local ethnic communities.

The two Yukis from Adelaide, South Australia, could be the secret weapon that the All Japan Samurais team needs to advance to the big finals of the 2008 Australian Football International Cup, which is now heading to Warrnambool in country Victoria.

It was the Scott Fleming show yesterday at Ransford Oval. But don’t be fooled into thinking he was a lone hand. Both on Wednesday and again yesterday we repeatedly saw the brilliant passing of Aaron Falcioni (and other team mates) giving Fleming the best possible chance to mark out front on the lead where defenders were unable to have a say in whether he marked or not.

He is not a one trick pony though - we have seen Fleming pounce on the loose ball at pace and snap goals on the run. It was Fleming who started the ball rolling early on with a mark out front on the edge of the arc. However, he had to wait some five minutes to take the kick as Sweden’s full back Mattias Fagersson, who was knocked out falling heavily in a previous marking contest, had to be treated by medical staff and was later taken to hospital. Fleming restarted the game with a solid boot for maximum points.