World Footy News

The recent stream of international Australian Football news stories in the Australian and international media continued over the last week. We've pointed you at a lot of them and here is a small sample of some more, ranging from footy in Dubai to South Africa, from China to Ireland, New Zealand and even Australia.

The ambitious plan to bring a combined Israeli-Palestinian team to the 2008 Australian Football International Cup in Victoria appears to be well under way. The concept is based on a similar team that has toured the world playing soccer, but has the added complexity that for the players, Aussie Rules is a completely foreign game.

Athletes with strong soccer and basketball backgrounds have been targeted, and 75 are now in training, from which 35 to 40 will be selected to represent Israel-Palestine. The side will compete in the second division of the Cup. Beyond the challenges of a foreign game, historical conflict and the need to have the rules translated into Hebrew and Arabic, the players have also faced a lockdown on the West Bank when US President George Bush visited the area, and a massive snowstorm that prevented training in Jerusalem.

You can read more about the newest team to hit world footy in Making the impossible possible, by Chelsea Roffey, on the AFL website. In good news for footy, Roffey, from Media Giants, will be working with the AFL to expand coverage of international Australian Football leading up to, and through, the International Cup. As per 2005, worldfootynews.com will also be providing material to the AFL, and plans are under way between the three groups to pool resources to make the third Cup the best covered yet.

According to reports Collingwood will find themselves playing the Blues in front of 80,000 fans later this year - but it won’t be "We are the Navy Blues" echoing from opposition supporters - rather “Molly Malone… crying cockles and mussels alive alive oh” from the Dublin fans decked out in their Sky Blue team jerseys. And it also seems that Australia versus Ireland in International Rules could resume later this year or 2009.

Editor: USFooty's Revolution headed to Atlanta for their second training camp of the year last weekend. The following report courtesy of Chris Adams at our partner news site, usfootynews.com. Chris will continue to provide stories for the international readership on worldfootynews.com, as well as working on the dedicated United States website.

The Revos have three training camps planned before they head to Melbourne for the Australian Football International Cup, one camp in each region of the US. The Western training camp was in Los Angeles a few weeks ago. The Central training camp is this weekend in Atlanta. The Eastern traning camp will be April 12 as part of the Fort Lauderdale Spring Tournament at the new Broward County Cricket Stadium. The Fort Lauderdale camp will be the last opportunity for hopefuls to impress the coaches and USFooty plans to name their squad for Melbourne soon after the last training camp.

Pearce Hanley is the Brisbane Lions' latest Irish recruit and already is being favourably compared to Colm Begley who played 19 games last year for the Lions.

Hanley is interviewed by the Queensland Courier Mail talking of his homesickness for County Mayo in Ireland's west and the challenges he has had adapting to the oval ball.

He makes the point that the only real challenges are adapting to the oval ball and tackling, but that otherwise Gaelic football and Aussie Rules "are nearly the same".

Hanley was the Barassi medallist as best player in the 2006 Under-17 International Rules series. The loss of such top young talent from Gaelic Football has been cited as one reason for abandoning the under age series by the GAA, and losing Hanley would have been a particularly painful blow.

On that score, GAA fans can console themselves with some of Hanley's comments - that returning to Ireland a better footballer and playing for his club and county in the GAA remain his long term ambition. However it is early days and whether he will still think that way once he tastes AFL finals action and other attractions of the land down under remains to be seen.

The Australian Indigenous under 16 side, the Flying Boomerangs, have completed their African tour undefeated, knocking over the locals 164 to 38 in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. The match was preceded by an under 13s game between the home town and another local area, Nyanga. In another good sign for development of the sport, both matches received some local media coverage, an important step in exposing locals to footy and opening people's mind to the game.

The following report, by Mzwanele Mkalipi, can also be read online here: Blimey, bra, it's Aussie rules footy

AFANA is still looking for a couple more writers to add to their team covering the AFL for the North American audience. In particular they need Adelaide and Sydney-based staff. They can organise AFL accreditation and the position offers an excellent chance for a budding young journalist to get some experience.

See Volunteers Needed for 2008 for more information.

Former Richmond and Essendon great Kevin Sheedy is keeping up his fervent calls for the AFL and Australians to embrace international footy. When the AFL appointed him as an ambassador for the 150-year celebrations, they said Sheedy would challenge them, and he's certainly doing that. Amongst his latest challenges are for an AFL match in India, an academy in California, more overseas development officers, and a $1 levy on AFL tickets to fund development. Most of these are ideas that have been floated many times before, by people in overseas leagues, those involved in developing the game, sites such as worldfootynews.com and fans on chat forums. But never before has someone so prominent made such a sustained call to arms for international footy.

The full article, on the Herald Sun website, is: Time is right for AFL to go global.

There's been a couple of good reports on Game 2 of the South African development team versus the Australian Indigenous side. The two sides met in kwaMashu (near Durban) and with plenty of local promotion a crowd variously stated as "over 1000" and "2500" turned up to cheer on the home nation (and boo the Aussies - at least they're passionate!)

Pleasingly the match got some local press, something that Australian Football hasn't had a lot of in South Africa thus far, at least not showing up in on-line searches (which admittedly may not be the best resource in a country such as this).

Read Yusuf Moolla's report, Local ground transformed into Australian football field, online in South Africa's The Mercury. The image to the right of the article suggests it was accompanied by an action photo from the game. AFL Commissioner Colin Carter was on hand to witness the game's early growth in the KwaZulu-Natal province.

The Aboriginal side pulled away in the first three quarters of the 16-a-side match, but obviously the locals were competitive. In what was presumably a sporting gesture to test their own players and allow the South Africans a chance to fight back in front of their supporters, the Boomerangs played with 14 on the field towards the end. The Buffaloes duly fought back with five unanswered goals, much to the delight of locals. But the Australians hung on to win 11.10 (76) to 8.9 (57).

Also see Ben Broad's Indigenous team pushed, but prevail.

A preview of Game 3 is this article, ’Litsha to host an historical game , on the Western Cape CityVision website.

The Dubai Dingoes' Joel Preston was extensively interviewed on Adelaide's top sports radio show, hosted by South Australian footy stalwarts Graham Cornes and K.G. Cunningham. Cornes was a star player with Glenelg in the SANFL and Cunningham a state cricketer and long serving football umpire. The duo are in Dubai for the NAB Cup opener between Adelaide and Collingwood, and have spent a lot of the time discussing Dubai and the conditions for football.

Reports suggest the field is in good condition, with interviewed Crows players saying it was firm but okay underfoot, despite a recent sandstorm. Temporary seating and amenities have been installed and a crowd of anywhere between 4000 and 10,000 has been predicted, though the lower end of that range is likely.

There's also been plenty of media for the event, some of which is listed here, but there's also apparently been some off-field talk that might not be healthy, though a recent update from Joel is that the situation should not be an issue on the day.

The comedic duo of Jeff and Paul that brought you the Footy Wrap on Youtube in 2007 are in training for the new season. In what seems to have become an annual event, AFL club the Western Bulldogs invited the media to a training day in which they got to experience a typical day in the life of an AFL footballer. Jeff had no pretensions but Paul was ready to make his bid to become the AFL's most unlikely rookie....

Jeff and Paul meet the Western Bulldogs

Jeff's full report can be read below.