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