World Footy News

This Saturday, October 6th, the Ontario Australian Football League will showcase its best two teams in the 2007 OAFL Grand Final. Special OAFL guest, AFL legend Kevin Sheedy will also be present at the event as he is currently in Toronto to get a first-hand look at the development of Australian Football in Canada.

The day will begin with an exhibition match between the Canadian National Team, The Northwind and the touring "Convicts" Australian Football team. This game is sure to be an entertaining curtain raiser and will showcase some of the OAFL's best players.

The two teams vying for the 2007 OAFL Premiership are the Toronto Eagles and the Etobicoke Kangaroos. Both clubs have had fantastic seasons, with both finishing on top of the OAFL ladder with 13 wins and 1 loss in the regular season. The Etobicoke Kangaroos are looking for their first championship and are 0-1 in Grand Finals since coming into the league in 2003 while the Toronto Eagles are looking for their 11th OAFL premiership since the leagues inception in 1989. Details follow.

From a world footy perspective, it might be disappointing to hear that, as reported in the Herald Sun, the Federal Government has announced a reduction in the number of African refugees coming to Australia. Although there is a difference between growing the game internationally and growing the game amongst migrants to Australia, there are connections.

It appears that the Brisbane Lions have their man Pierce Hanley signing on to a two year contract with the club, some two months down the track from when the move was flagged, now confirmed on the AFL’s website.

After missing out on Brendan Murphy the club will be relieved to have secured Hanley’s services. Murphy was reportedly convinced by Tadgh Kennelly to join the Swans after earlier looking to be heading to Brisbane. Rounding out the trio of new Irish blood on AFL rookie lists in 2008 will be Kevin Dyas, who is reported to have accepted Collingwood's contract offer after being given a period to return home and consider the offer as previously reported.

All three will be pre-listed in the rookie draft and start on their new club's rookie list in 2008.

Sports Without Borders is a new non-profit organisation supporting young people from migrant or refugee communities in Melbourne to get involved in sporting clubs. Backed by groups including the Victorian Institute of Sport, Swinburne University and the Victorian Multicultural Commission, SWB has been part of a wider push for Australian rules football among young Victorians from non-English speaking backgrounds.

Sudanese cousins Ring and Akon Mawlen recently received a cheque to help them continue their footy careers at the Albion Football Club in Melbourne's western suburbs, Akon having played in an under 12s premiership side this year for the club. The presentation marked the start of a partnership between SWB and AFL Foundation, the full story can be found on the AFL website.

The British Bulldogs defeated the Irish Warriors by ten goals in Dublin last weekend, the first Aussie Rules test match ever held in Ireland showing both a markedly improving Bulldogs squad and a Green Machine slipping from its heyday of International Cup glory in 2002.

With both sides looking towards next year's International Cup, the balance of power in the British Isles could be moving eastwards. The Bulldogs destroyed all comers in the Manchester tournament held a few weeks ago, and still have a match to come this year against the ARUK England Dragonslayers. Ireland conversely hasn't put a national team on the pitch since last year, although they'll be straight back into it this weekend with a match against Denmark in Århus.

This report courtesy of the BARFL's Martin Smith.

In danger of being lost amongst the many firsts in the BC Footy weekend back in August in which Canada and the United States went head-to-head in men's, women's and under 17's boys Australian Football, was the annual BC Footy Cup. The club competition saw a combined Seattle/Portland side travel up from the US to take on the local Vancouver Cougars and Burnaby Eagles and Alberta's Kangaroos. But the individual journeys across North America were surpassed by the Nippon AFL side that took part in the Cup, with members of the Tsunami squad making the long trip from Japan.

The Internet has been a huge boon for getting the Aussie Footy message to the world (this site is testament to that), but recent social networking enhancements may be about to change the footy world. Despite advancements to web technologies, it has still traditionally costs a lot for clubs to get their own websites going, to get people to find it (search engines) and also to get an online forum to get people involved. Fans have been trying to find ways to keep in touch and sites like Yahoo groups once helped with Grand Final gettogethers and particularly with formation clubs. But there was never a central place where you could find and login to these groups as a result, they often fizzed out.

The USAFL has released the draw for this year's nationals in Louisville, Kentucky, with the competition expanding to four divisions for the first time.

There will also be a women's tournament with around four teams, one team from Canada heading down (the Calgary Kangaroos), a tour match between The Convicts and the US Revolution, and ex-AFL mega coach Kevin Sheedy in attendance.

The 10th year of the competition looks set to be the biggest weekend of US Nationals yet.

Perhaps after a 44 year premiership drought it was good karma that finally brought success to the Cats. At least that could be the view from an international perspective, with people involved with the club doing the right thing by international footy recently. As we reported, Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel has been a regular visitor to Denmark and is off again soon, where he'll give some assistance to Australian Football development there.

Making an even larger commitment is Frank Costa, the Cats' president and the man behind Costa Logistics, a fruit and vegetable company (amongst other things) that we reported on earlier in the year in "Costa Logistics gives young Africans opportunity".

Costa joined Geelong when the club was millions of dollars in debt and has been a big part of their turn-around. His company is now investing in South Africa, such as in the Alexandra region of Johannesburg, and as part of that they are also putting over half a million dollars over three years into AFL South Africa's program. As a sign of that commitment, a special guest was brought to the MCG. On AFL Grand Final day nine year old Tsepho Daniel Raphiri, a FootyWild participant in Alexandra, was involved with the half-time Auskick program. Let's hope the young lad was able to appreciate the atmosphere of the day.

The full story can be found at Footy goes Wild.

In the past couple of weeks some big names from the US threw their weight behind AFL clubs.

Al Gore, former US presidential candidate best known in Australia for his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" on global warming, nominated Collingwood as his AFL club of choice, as reported in the Herald Sun's article Crusader warms to Magpies.

Also former American Idol and pop superstar Kelly Clarkson became a Geelong supporter during her recent tour, as reported in the Herald Sun article Kelly Backs Geelong.

While it makes a good publicity stunt to nominate an AFL team, international celebrities discovering our unique Australian game helps raise awareness - this is especially so in the United States, where awareness of the game is growing but it is still very often confused with rugby.

Denmark defeated Sweden in Landskrona on Saturday but it wasn't the only thing that happened footy-wise in the region over the weekend.

1 San Diego Lions (10 #1 Votes) (6-0)
2 Denver Bulldogs (5-1)
3 BW Eagles (5-0)
4 NY Magpies (4-1) (UP from 5)
5 Golden Gate Roos (1-1) (DOWN from 4)
6 Chicago United (5-1)
7 OC Bombers (1-4)
8 Boston Demons (2-2)
9 Minnesota Freeze (3-1) (IN)
10 Seattle Grizzlies (3-0)
Also receiving votes Atlanta Kookaburras (4-2) (OUT), Milwaukee Bombers (3-7), Nashville Kangaroos (6-1).

The No. 1 San Diego Lions have cemented themselves as favorites going into the USFooty National Championship Tournament in Louisville KY on October 13 and 14. The Lions also finished top of the Unofficial USFooty ladder with 6 wins, no losses, 24 points and a percentage of 301. The Lions impressive regular season included going 2-0 in their home and home series with the Orange County Bombers, a convincing win over Golden Gate in San Diego and taking out the 2007 Western Regional Tournament by beating No. 2 Denver Bulldogs by 9 in Denver. The Lions have been led all year by former president and 2006 joint Best and Fairest, Brendan McDonald who finished top of the USFooty goal kicking list with 17 goals, an average of just under 3 goals a game. Also contributing to the cause is current President Adam Cannane, J Cameron, S Shenk and last year's joint Best and Fairest Justin Valley. Nipping the Lions' heels all season has been the Denver Bulldogs. Denver also had a very impressive season finishing with 5 wins and just one close loss to the Lions. Denver finished 3rd behind the unranked Nashville Kangaroos on the Unofficial USFooty ladder with 20 points and a percentage of 485. Denver have been led all year by former USFooty President and 2007 East vs West stand out Rich Mann.