World Footy News

This weekend sees an incredible list of firsts as Australian Football in North American shows further signs of maturity. Besides Canada and the United States men's squads again doing battle for the 49th Parallel Cup (and playing a further exhibition match the following day), the two day event will feature the debut of the two countries' national womens and juniors squads. The tournament is being staged as part of the annual BC Footy Cup in Vancouver (British Columbia, Canada), and will include a visit from Japan's Tsunami squad joining in with the Victoria Lions (Can) in the club competition featuring Seattle (US) combined with Portland (US), Vancouver (Can), Burnaby (Can) and Alberta (Can). We talk to the Northwind coach and review their team's matches leading up to the event, as well as speak with the Nippon AFL's Andy Carne. The tournament will take place at UBC's 3,500 seat Thunderbird Stadium, perhaps the premier venue for Aussie Rules in North America. Article by Chris Adams and Brett Northey, and updated with US Revolution (men's) squad

The second edition of the EU Cup is just under seven weeks away, with eleven teams currently on the schedule to take part. The tournament will be held at the Hamburg Stadtpark on Saturday September 15th, with a conference of competing to be held the following day. The Czech Lions, Spain Bulls and Finland Ice Breakers will be making their EU Cup debut, with eight of the ten teams from the 2005 cup returning - Catalonia, Austria, Belgium, the England Dragonslayers, Germany, France, Sweden and the Flying Dutchmen.

The EU Cup is the largest event for the newer teams around Europe, some of whom are hping to be at a level of development where they can mount an IC side as early as next year. The EU Cup 2007 Organising Committee is currently working hard to ensure the tournament will be a fun, enjoyable experience and a great weekend of footy for all who attend. The Welsh Red Dragons were originally slated to take part as the twelfth side, but have been forced to withdraw, leaving one more spot available for any interested country.

Visit www.australian-football.eu or email eucup2007@australian-football.eu for more information.

The first ever match by the Canadian and United States women's Australian Football teams takes place on Saturday 4th August 2007 in Vancouver. Is this the first international match, country versus country, of women's Australian Football - let us know if you can think of any others? If it is, there would be some historic symmetry - the first ever men's international cricket match is reported to have been between Canada and the US, in 1844, despite neither being amongst the leading cricket nations today. The respective coaches of the Canada and US women's footy teams gave us a preview of their sides before the historic match.

It seems that as previously reported here Brendan Murphy will be coming out to check out the Brisbane Lion’s facilities (as Martin Clarke did at Collingwood 13 months ago) after a visit from Gabby Allen recently and confirmed by Brisbane’s Michael Bowers yesterday. Also yesterday it was confirmed in many Irish papers including the Mayo News (Hanley hits for Oz) that Pierce Hanley has been offered a two year contract to join the Brisbane Lions.

File footage of a Binatangs squad from a previous year

The twenty five young AFL players returned home to PNG last week after an exciting and successful inaugural tour to Queensland for the Queensland Under Fourteen State Championships. The PNG Binatangs won 2 and lost 2 matches, a great result for a side that hadn't played together as a team until their first match of the tour, and was touring to a foreign land for the first time. National Operations Manager Peter Cates said "The boys that were part of the U14 Binatangs were selected at last years Junior National Championships and have been undergoing training under local AFLPNG supervision in their provinces, until they came together as a squad, just prior to flying to Australia".

The Bournemouth Demons have defeated Sussex in Aussie Rules UK's first Southern Division grand final. The nine-a-side competition featured six teams competing over 10 rounds, with Sussex knocking over Southampton in the preliminary final to advance through to the decider where the Demons were too good, winning by a convincing 53 points.

Yes, it's time for WFN to put out another request for assistance. With the steady ebb and flow of work and life commitments of our volunteer reporters we are currently in need of help covering two countries and one continent. Our writers are all volunteers who have a passion for seeing Aussie Rules grow internationally. At the end of the day we're only a very small piece of the puzzle, but feedback from leagues, clubs and fans is that WFN helps that community achieve its goals, so getting involved this way is a chance to help with the cause even if you aren't based in any of the place we have vacancies for. In fact your location isn't particularly important - being based in the given country or region is helpful but not a realistic requirement for the job. More important are reasonable writing skills, a love of footy and the willingness to get involved.

Our main area in need is Asia, covering such growing areas as Japan, China and many more. Language skills relevant to those countries would be a huge plus but again, not a requirement, and we have plenty of English speaking contacts. We also require people to write on Canada and Ireland.

In all cases we will give you support, provide plenty of contacts, and no particular computer skills are required - we'll show you how to upload your stories through a relatively simply web page. So if you have an interest in supporting international footy and getting a behind-the-scenes view on the game's growth, then consider volunteering to write for WFN. Contact Brett here for more information, or visit our About Us page to see our current structure.

Big Sav Rocca is interviewed on Philadelphia Eagles TV as he finishes his first three days of training camp. Rocca has been in full-time training for the punting job at Philadelphia for the last 5 months and is hoping that his stronger leg is going to win him the position over veteran Dirk Johnson. Although Sav is now bidding for a spot in the United States' NFL, his background as an Aussie Rules star can only help raise the profile of the sport in America - as evidenced by Sav's interview which extensively discusses his career.

Go to www.philadelphiaeagles.com to watch the interview - at time of writing simply click on the video image at top right.

In an effort to continue to develop its ties with the Australian football community, USFooty has introduced an Australian Ambassador program with five initial ambassadors - former Hawthorn champion, Robert "Dipper" DiPierdomenico, businessmen and former Hawthorn President, Ian Dicker, former South Fremantle player and current USFooty Nationals Commentator, Rod "Grilla" Grljusich, Brownlow Medalist and former Brisbane Lions star, Michael Voss, and mangement consultant and current AFL Commissioner, Colin Carter. According to USFooty, "the mission of the USAFL Ambassador program is to promote the interests of the USAFL and the growth of Australian Football in the US. The USFooty Ambassador program is comprised of individuals who have a high profile who will help promote the USAFL in Australia and America and have the capacity to assist the USAFL board in a number of different arenas." The Ambassador Program rolls out hot on the heels of USFooty's Australian Advisory Board. USFooty's Paul O'Keeffe says the Ambassador program is meant to compliment the Advisory Board by creating a network of Australians in the football and business community who are interested in helping to develop footy in the US.

For the last couple of seasons the Collingwood Football Club have held part of their pre-season training at an elite sports facility at high altitude in Flagstaff, Arizona (USA). But with their commitment to a match against Adelaide in Dubai in the Middle East as well as taking an active role in South Africa's Western Cape province, the Magpies have decided they can't reasonably fit too much overseas travel into one pre-season. So they will shift their high altitude camp to Potchefstroom, in South Africa's North-West province, and support development in Cape Town from there, before heading direct to Dubai.

The push into KwaZulu-Natal is also underway, with the launch of the program in Umlazi. More details of both these initiatives follows.

Footy in China has received plenty of attention in recent times, with Tom Mattessi and Andrew Sawitsch both working hard to kick-start local participation. Along the way they've had the assistance of a sister-city arrangement between Melbourne and Tianjin, as well as active Australian expat-based footy clubs in Shanghai and Beijing.

Currently footy is established in two main regions of China (three including Hong Kong). In the north, the Beijing Bombers are a mainly Australian footy club in the national capital, with some fairly new mainly Chinese university teams about two hours away in Tianjin. On the coast further south the Shanghai Tigers are also about two hours' away from the city of Suzhou, where a burgeoning juniors program is taking root in local schools.

The people working on the ground in China believe the potential to be massive, although there's talk the next step could require a funding injection from the Australian end to really create a solid, self-sustaining footy scene. Certainly many consider a Chinese team at the 2008 IC to be a strong possibility - and possibly a huge surprise packet on the field. Could China become the "new South Africa" with regards to development funding?

The countdown to the 2007 Narita Cup has officially begun with the Japan AFL this week beginning its promotion of the event. To be held in early October, it will coincide with the 20th anniversary of football in the country. Japan’s first taste of Australian football was a curtain-raiser to a Hawthorn and Essendon AFL match at Yokohama Stadium in 1987, and involved the renowned Waseda and Keio Universities. Since that initial game, the Japan AFL has been diligent in expanding football's profile throughout the country, with both a senior and university competition underway and representation (through the All-Japan Samurais) at the 2002 and 2005 International Cups. The Samurais have been one of the more active national sides, making an annual trip to Australia which will continue this year.