World Footy News

Auckland AFL successfully defended its title as New Zealand's strongest domestic football league over the weekend at the NZAFL National Provincial Championships held at Manurewa.

The Golden Gate AFL was one of the groundbreaking leagues in the US, amongst a handful to seriously commit to development of a local city league ahead of interstate travel. This lead is now being followed in other regions of the United States. Now the league has seen another leading spin-off with the development of possibly the first high school club in the US.

In a tremendous milestone for the development of international Australian Football, Japanese pair Tsuyoshi Kase (on the left in adjacent photo) and Michito Sakaki (to the right) will play for Bendigo in the Victorian Football League in 2006. This possibility has been suggested in several media reports recently but former head of the Japan AFL, Troy Beard, has confirmed that both players will be listed with Bendigo.

Canadian club, the Guelph Gargoyles will this August host the first Wellington Boot Invitational tournament, featuring three days of football with live bands and other entertainment between games. Organisers are hopeful of clubs from Japan, Ireland, Britain and the United States in addition to the Canadians in attendance.

Erin Phillips is an up-and-coming point guard in Australia's premier women's basketball league, the WNBL. A top player with Adelaide's national league side the Adelaide Fellas (a curious title based on their major sponsor - the club was formerly known as the Adelaide Lightning), Phillips is also known in South Australia for her football prowess and heritage. Her father is Greg Phillips, a legend at Port Adelaide in the SANFL in the era before the ever strengthening VFL expanded to become the AFL. Greg was a strong player for Port, and also played several seasons with Collingwood in the VFL. In all he played over 400 games of senior footy. His daughter was also a good footballer, competing with boys through her junior years, and playing in celebrity matches. Now she is set to join the world's best women's basketball league, the WNBA. In recent years we've seen former AFL players like Darren Bennett and Ben Graham helping promote Aussie Rules in the US, so maybe Erin will be another candidate, particularly in accelerating the game in the fledgling female market. Joel Shepherd sent us this report.

Plans to promote Australian football in China were boosted this week, with the announcement that a football 'ambassador' has been appointed to grow the game in the world's most-populous nation. Based in Melbourne's sister city Tianjin, the position has been created to pave the way for a visit by the Melbourne Football Club later in 2006.

During the 2005 International Cup the AFL's National Talent Manager Kevin Sheehan was a keen observer. While followers of the international development of Aussie Rules will know that junior numbers have only begun to grow in recent years and much work needs to be done, it may still be the case that the first international draftee (other than the Irish Gaelic/Hurling player experiment) may not be far away. The next big step forward was the invitation of international players to the AIS-AFL draft camp late last year. When can we expect to see an international draftee, how well did the overseas players stack up, and will the camp invites go out again in 2006? WFN asks all these questions and more in an interview with Kevin Sheehan, in which he foreshadows changes in the very near future to fast-track international youth development.

On a very chilly Australia Day, the New York Magpies were hosted by the Chelsea Pier Golf driving range (in Manhattan) in an event that signified the small but steadily growing steps of influence that Aussie Rules has on the United States - the Magpies bringing the game of Aussie Rules to their city and Ben Graham bringing his Aussie Rules big kicking leg to the NFL’s New York Jets. In addition to Graham's participation in the longest kick competition, he also showed willingness to take some training sessions for the Pies and attend games where possible, in a potential publicity coup for the Pies.

New Zealand enjoyed considerable Australian footballing success in 2005. Besides winning the International Cup, the Pacific nation was invited to compete in the Australian Country Championships and thousands of junior participants were exposed to the sport. This February, Auckland hosts New Zealand's premier domestic football tournament - the National Provincial Championships - which will determine the nation's best senior league and will include junior participants for the first time.

AFL and GAA chiefs met in Melbourne last week to discuss terms for continuation of the International Rules series, with calls in the Irish media to scrap the series due to what has been labelled 'thuggery' on the part of the Australians. An agreement between the two leagues will see much harsher penalties for on-field violence in future, plus possible changes to the way AFL clubs can recruit young Irishmen.

Southern Sweden will this year play football across three levels of competition, with a 4-team Scania league feeding into a 3-team regional league. The best players from the regional league will continue to compete as the Southern Saints in the DAFL Premier League.

Colorful new inclusions to the regional league include the Landskrona Bulldozers (jumper at left) and the Göteborg Beserkers, set for their first year of regular league play after a few years of hard work getting off the ground.

Australian Football has clearly put down roots in the United States over the past few years. It was only in 1996 that the first match was played by US teams, with the first Nationals the following year, in Cincinatti. In a few countries growth has been slow but fairly steady and the US is no exception, except its shear size of population means any small growth adds up to big numbers quickly. Where America appears to have fallen off the pace a little is in junior development, with leading countries like Papua New Guinea and New Zealand working hard on spreading the game amongst children. The US has been held back by a variety of reasons, such as no single city reaching "critical mass" in adult players. But also being relatively new to the sport, there has yet to be many former players now parents looking to get their kids into the game, as has been seen for example in Denmark.

However the USAFL's Denis Ryan has been working hard with the US Footy Kids program (similar to Auskick) and has started to see tangible results in the past year, so what better time for WFN to catch up with him and see how the future may unfold. Having recently sold nearly 1000 footies in Texas, things must be looking good.