World Footy News

Mike McFarlane, co-founder of the North Delta Junior AFL and a former AFL Canada President, recently received recognition for his outstanding service to the local community. He was a Top Honour Recipient in the sixth annual Community Leader Awards.

McFarlane was interviewed for a locally published article, discussing his start in the game (during a stint in Australia in the 1980s), the beginnings of his involvement in junior development through his son's primary school, through to the NDJAFL's quest to send a Canadian national under 17 team to Australia during the upcoming International Cup.

One parent spoke glowingly of Mike and the program, "We are proud that our children are growing into healthy young athletes with a great sense of sportsmanship thanks to the many years that you have dedicated to coaching. You are an inspiration for the parents, athletes and coaches alike. Congratulations on receiving the Community Leaders Award for Coaching in 2008".

Well done to Mike and the entire NDJAFL. Such recognition along the way is not only rewarding for the individual but helps cast further positive light on junior footy development in British Columbia, Canada.

While footy lovers across the US drooled at the new stadium being built in Florida primarily for cricket but also with Aussie Rules in mind, the cost of playing there did not come to mind. When it was mooted earlier in the year that the Faststream Spring Invitational Tournament would be played at the Lauderhill stadium there were plenty of clubs put their hands up in anticipation of going down to Florida to play at this great new facility. There was much talk in US footy circles about Nationals being a certainty to be played there in coming years as well. The reality is a little different to the dream. Broward County, who fronted the vast amounts of money to build that stadium, want to see a decent return on their investment with hefty user pays fees. This prevented the tournament earlier in the year using the stadium (also due to late withdrawal of teams needed to pay the ground costs), continues to prevent the local teams playing or training here and could deter the USAFL from playing the Nationals here in future as well.

USFootyNews recently caught up with USFooty's Revolution squad member, Jay Levesque, after the Baltimore Washington Eagles training run on Thursday June 12 2008. The next day Revolution Head Coach Robert Oliver, visited the elementary school where Levesque is a PE Teacher to present his Revolution jumper. You can view the video clip right here on World Footy News below.

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Melbourne Football Club's connections to Ireland have never been stronger. New Melbourne Football Club chairman Irish born Brownlow medallist Jim Stynes has enlisted the help of one of Ireland's rugby greats Brian O'Driscoll, current captain of Ireland's rugby union team to increase the club's membership.

The Melbourne Demons website has more including a photo of O'Driscoll in the Demons jumper in the article Jim signs up Ireland.

The Hawthorn Football Club will be the New Zealand Falcon's host club for the 2008 International Cup.

This is an alliance where there is a natural link, at present, in Kiwi born backman Trent Croad who plays with the silver fern tattooed onto his upper arm. Trent's grandfather was an All Black and although Trent left NZ as a four year old he has obviously retained strong links to the country.

Trent was one of the people sent over earlier this decade to Wellington as a promotional player for an Ansett Cup clash with the Western Bulldogs and may be able to renew some old acquaintances at the IC08.

The opportunity for NZ to have access to the Waverley Park facilities of the Hawks, and to such a currently successful club as Hawthorn, is one that the Kiwis are very happy with.

To read more on this view Hawthorn to host the New Zealand Falcons.

The battle to save some of Victoria's AFL clubs has created some resentment and attracted some extreme views. On one front new Melbourne chairman Jim Stynes has lashed out at non-Victorian clubs, and on another veteran stirrer of Victorian football, Graham Cornes, has written an article quoting a former Demons player suggesting the United States is the answer.

The Denmark Vikings recently paid the airfares and confirmed their return to International Cup footy. To celebrate, they took on the Swedish Elks and ran out 58-point victors in a match marked by the almost-traditional heavy rain that has dogged Scandinavian Cup test matches.

A tight first quarter saw the Danes take a 13-point advantage into the first break, before pulling away with the breeze to lead by seven goals at half time. At this point the skies opened, effectively ending the Elks' chances of pegging back the difference, the Danes winning 12.9.81 to 3.5.23.

Best on ground went to Denmark's René Damborg Jensen, with Danish veteran Erik Krolmark kicking six goals. Krolmark recently celebrated the 500th goal in his DAFL career with North Copenhagen, as well as coincidentally posting his 1000th career behind in the same game.

Media reports have confirmed that former player and player manager, Ricky Nixon, is on his way to Ireland to set up a dedicated recruiting system. His initial plans were reported earlier in the year and he is ready to put them into action, with Geelong, St Kilda, Richmond, North Melbourne and Brisbane Lions apparently prepared to pay $30,000 each to have access to his network.

Peter Hanlon reports in The Age that Nixon will arrive in Ireland in the next two weeks to head up the project with staff including Joe Begley, the brother of the Brisbane Lions' Irish recruit Colm, plus an elite junior coach, a sports psychologist, a university professor, an Australian expat who played in the VFL, and an ex-AFL teammate of Nixon's. Gaelic football coaches are also said to be involved, though overall the talk that the GAA may prefer this model over random searches by AFL clubs sounds more like an attempt to put a positive spin on pillaging of Irish stocks.

Scanlon wrote, "A group of 20 to 30 Gaelic footballers aged 17 to 22, but mostly in the 17 to 19 bracket, will be invited to attend a camp in either Dublin or Belfast in August. Their parents will also be invited, with presentations made on all things AFL as well as life in Australia" and "The groundwork for drawing up a list of 100 prospective draftees has been made easier by using software from Swedish company Dartfish, which AFL clubs have already used as a teaching tool, but which in this instance has been applied to footage from GAA games to form a database of players". The software allows players and events like kicks and tackles to be tagged for quick recall.

Nixon is also reported as saying that if successful, the program could be rolled out in other areas such as Africa and North America. That will be far more difficult because so much of what the AFL clubs will be looking for is demonstrated in the skills of Gaelic football. Although there are Australian footy programs in many countries, other than South Africa and perhaps New Zealand and PNG, the numbers of players regularly involved aren't there yet (1000s playing every week rather than 100s), and it would be far more difficult to attract and evaluate kids from other sports. Nevertheless, it could be an intriguing next step for international footy.

Note that the comment in the quoted article that "AFL clubs are allowed no more than two international players on their lists" is probably not correct - there was once a two-player Irish limit, but we think that was merged with the normal six player rookie list. Certainly other international players can be signed under the separate international scholarship lists (up to 8 per year, 24 total, for each club).

As preparations continue for the third Australian Football International Cup (also often referred to as the AFL International Cup) it is pleasing to note that V-Line and the Victorian Country Football League have joined forces to provide transport for the competing nations as they head down to Warrnambool for two rounds of the tournament. The deal had been known about for some months but details have now been confirmed.

The VCFL's marketing and communications manager Graeme Allen told worldfootynews.com that the package is worth around AUD$25,000 which will certainly ease the load on teams. "V/Line will provide one train which will have most of the teams on it and the remainder will be on a normal scheduled service to Warrnambool". A working group has been in place since October making sure the town will turn it on for the visitors. It includes representatives of council, football leagues, umpires and schools.

A few more details are now also available about the events for players attending the Cup, including local attractions, filming of games and possible night matches. It also looks certain that Spain will not attend, leaving 17 teams as the likely number, dramatically up from 11 in 2002 and 10 in 2005.

Minnesota Freeze's Ryan Marx featured this week in a story on the Bellevue Leader's site. Marx along with three of his Freeze teammates were named in the USAFL's Revolution squad to compete at this years International Cup in Melbourne. Marx descibes himself in the article as "I'm tall, but I'm also pretty skinny, so I can move fairly quick," and at 6 feet 5 inches will be hard to match up on for his international opponents.

The San Diego Lions, one of USFooty's power clubs, have recently embraced (a version of) Recreational Football, a non-contact version of Aussie Rules that can be used to introduce new players to the game, get people involved that don't want the full contact and also allows mixed sex matches ("co-ed"). Often used for intra-club, San Diego recently took their rec footy team on the road to play the Las Vegas Gamblers' side.

You can check out their rec footy and full contact matches on Youtube here.

Almost 30 players attended the Japan National Team Training Camp last month at Narita Radisson Hotel Ground. Players were invited were from all the domestic teams such as Eastern Hawks, Senshu Powers, Komazawa Magpies, Tokyo Leopards and Osaka Dingoes. The camp ran over two days in order to assess potential candidates to be selected in the travelling squad for the 2008 International Cup. Our thanks to Hideki Miyasaka for the following report.