World Footy News

Ireland's Martin Clarke has opened his AFL career with a polished display in Collingwood's impressive win over Sydney at Telstra Stadium last night (Saturday 23rd June). Despite being named on the bench the 19 year old left-footer started on the field and played most of the match across half-back. Clarke was used mostly as a loose defender which allowed him to gather a high possession count. His first kick sailed out on the full and he naturally appeared tentative at first but quickly grew in confidence. As his possession count increased he revealed that of all the Irish recruits he has perhaps the most classical Australian Football kicking technique. Although still not 100% fluent his style was perfectly reasonable and was used to good effect throughout the night. Perhaps even more impressive were his reflexes and ability to take a tackle. Clarke was caught holding the ball on one occasion, but in many other cases was able to turn into a tackle and free his arms to give out clean handballs. Also notable was his mark of a "hospital" kick deep in the back pocket at a crucial stage when Sydney were surging. The ball hung above him and looked like an easy pick-off for the Sydney player, but Clarke leapt high into danger to get a hand on the ball then complete the mark falling to ground. There was also an incident later when he received a high knock and grabbed his head and there was fleeting moment when it looked like he may dwell on the blow rather than get back up quickly, but he was soon to his feet.

The Elgar Park Dragons, a mainly Vietnamese-Australian footy club who kicked-off in Melbourne this year, got a fairly impressive write-up in The Age newspaper today. The article mentioned some background to the Dragons, including the beginnings in the Multicultural Cup, plans to tour to Japan later this year, the substantial fan base starting to build at matches and the 4-5 winning record the Dragons have achieved so far - not bad for a start-up suburban club.

An extra item of interest (not in the Age's article) for the WFN readership - according to our sources, inaugral Dragons' captain Jiaming Pi (who's actually Chinese, rather than Vietnamese) was previously a key member of the Düsseldorf (now Rheinland) Lions in the AFL Germany.

Recently Kevin Morris, who has had a long and distinguished AFL career both on and off-field, joined key PNG football personnel National Operations Manager Peter Cates and AFL QLD Northern Region Development Manager and AFLPNG CEO Andrew Cadzow on the “Saveman” tour of PNG to kickstart their new season. Their tour made it plainly obvious that footy is exploding in the country of six million (with estimates suggesting it will grow to around 14 million by mid-century). It's an exciting time for the sport in Australia's nearest neighbour, with a new AFL Academy in PNG and the under 14s national side now set to follow the under 16s to the Queensland state championships.

Saturday is a make or break day for six of USFooty's Top 10 teams.  Probably the biggest game of the weekend occurs in Washington DC's Carter Barron Park, where the 8th ranked Baltimore Washington Eagles take on the 6th ranked Boston Demons.  The BW Eagles are coming off a triumphant home and home series against the 10th ranked North Carolina Tigers, taking them to the top of the USFooty's unofficial league ladder.  A win on Saturday against one of the power house sides of USFooty would probably cement the Eagles position in the top 5 and put them on the road to a Division 1 birth at the USFooty National Championship Tourney.  This will be Boston's first game of the year and it will be on the road, but the Demons will need to get the win if they are going to hold on the Eastern Australian Football League Championship.  The NC Tigers have had a rough start with three losses including the most recent to the Philly Hawks for EAFL points.  Big Jason Heathcote's young chargers have to be at their best when they host the third ranked New York Magpies.  Like the Demons, the Maggies are on the road for the first game of the year.

Over in the Mid-American Australian Football League, the 5th ranked Milwaukee Bombers are hosting the Cincinnati Dockers.  The Bombers will be looking to get their season back on track after going down to the Etobicoke Kangaroos of the Ontario Australian Football League and falling to the Atlanta Kookaburras in a small-sided game in Atlanta.  9th Ranked Chicago United are heading to St Louis to take on the Blues.  After taking care of Louisville at home, Chicago can put themselves in the running for a Division 1 birth with a good win over the Blues.

Collingwood's Irish rookie, Martin Clarke, is set to make his debut against Sydney at Telstra Stadium this Saturday. The champion junior from County Down is the latest to show that with hard work the step from talented Gaelic footballer to the AFL's professional ranks can be done in less than two years. With only around 14 games of Australian Football to his name the 19 year old has in fact been Down Under for less than 12 months. Making Williamstown's best players in three of their last four games, Clarke has been named on the interchange bench but is sure to get a good run such is the modern game with hard running and dozens of interchanges. It will be a huge match to start off Clarke's career with over 60,000 expected to attend Sydney's home away from the SCG.

There could have been two Irishmen running out on the night, but Sydney stalwart Tadhg Kennelly suffered a knee injury in the Swans' last game and is expected to miss at least a month.

The rise of Martin Clarke will leave Aisake O'hAilpin as the remaining Irish recruit in the AFL system yet to play at the highest level, but reports suggest he isn't far away from a crack at the big time too.

You can also read more about Clarke's rapid rise in Clarke to debut in Sydney.

Just a quick note that our 2005 International Cup multimedia section has been restored after being inadvertently lost during a system upgrade. We have also decided to allow commenting on most stories by registered users. It was a worthwhile feature previously and sometimes provided excellent new information from readers. We remind users the system is intended for constructive comment on international footy. Please respect this community resource - abuse and deliberate misinformation will not be tolerated.

South Warrnambool Football Netball Club has recently made a cross-Tasman "raid" to secure 20 year old New Zealander Moss Doran. The Kiwi played his first senior game for the Roosters two weeks ago against Terang Mortlake and it could be the start of a trans-Tasman alliance. South Warrnambool president Gary Walsh was reported as saying it was hoped the club would travel to New Zealand within two years to play some exhibition games and help foster the game. This builds on several other forays to Australia by New Zealand players - we have a look at Doran and the growing links between Aussie Rules in NZ and Australia.

The much talked about Collingwood versus Adelaide match proposed for Dubai (one of the seven emirates constituting the United Arab Emirates) moved a step closer this week with the likely venue getting a big tick from AFL ground operations manager Jill Lindsay. The US has found polo fields a good option for staging major Australian Football events such as their Nationals and it seems this trend will spread to the UAE, as the Dubai Polo Club has been ear-marked to host the likely match, probably as an exhibition game immediately before the usual NAB Cup tournament that precedes the regular season.

Early February 2008 is the likely time frame and Mark Stevens reports in the Herald Sun (see Dubai pre-season gets OK that the AFL believes it could attract a crowd of up to 10,000 people, thanks largely to the big Aussie expat community, so temporary stands would need to be erected. If the game goes ahead the AFL sees it as a "great opportunity to broaden the brand". A possible failing of past overseas forays has been to not link in with local communities to seed the game, so let's hope some ground work is done, including with local side the Dubai Dingoes, to make a lasting impact. This will be a challenge in the Muslim nation that has around 1.5 million residents but of which less than 20% are regarded as UAE nationals, with foreign workers making up the bulk of the population, mostly coming from India and surrounding countries.

GAA Director of Games, Pat Daly, was quoted in the Melbourne Herald Sun as saying the GAA wanted a meeting by late July to discuss ways to resume the International Rules Series. He spoke of the majority of elite level Gaelic footballers wanting the chance to represent Ireland: "The players are very much in favour of it and want it to continue". The AFL's media relations manager, Patrick Keane, reiterated the AFL's desire to see the series resume, but said no meeting date had been set at this stage and they were awaiting the GAA on a meeting date.

There will be a few things needing to be thrashed out when the meeting does take place. One of the last public comments on the series from GAA president, Nicky Brennan, flagged a wish for rule changes - see Hoganstand.com March article and GAA want to tweak rules of International Rules.

This summer, my seven year old son and myself are introducing a new concept in junior sport to Arlington, VA and the Washington DC area. We call it Saturday Morning Footy. In many ways there is nothing new at all about Saturday Morning Footy. I myself started playing Footy (aka Australian football) on Saturday mornings in 1977, thirty years ago! Of course, in 1977 I lived in Ringwood East, an outer suburb of Melbourne Australia and the program was run by my best friend's dad. The name itself comes from Arlington's very successful junior basketball program called Saturday Morning Basketball. Like Saturday Morning Basketball, Saturday Morning Footy will begin with three weeks of "clinics" to teach the skills and rules (although there will be a lot of fun games along the way), and the last two weeks will consist of "matches" between the designated teams.

In the lead-up to this year's Asian Australian Football Championships in Bangkok there has been some talk about the formalisation of an official Asian AFL to complement the championships and create a structure for scheduling international matches and funding junior development. A proposal floated on the Hanoi Swans' blog suggests two divisions of five clubs each could play a home-and-away series each year, the divisions being north - Tokyo Goannas, Hong Kong, China (Shanghai), Vietnam (Hanoi) and the Philippines - and south - Bali, Jakarta, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Each team would play the other four sides in their division once each year, with two matches at home and two away.

While WFN doesn't know how much this has been discussed by clubs so far, it looks like an interesting idea, particularly as there is mention in the plan of coordinating funding and sponsorship for clubs undertaking local and junior development. We'll post further news as it becomes available.