World Footy News

Some interesting results in July / August in the Asian region, which only adds to the excitement of the upcoming Asian Championships. Hong Kong proved their current title holder status by thumping Thailand in the Land of Smiles. Malaysia continued their solid run into September with a good win over Jakarta, and Bali further added to Jakarta’s woes a month later by crushing them in Jakarta.

Saturday August 20th saw the first of the Semi-Finals in the British Aussie Rules Football League (BARFL) on Clapham Common in London, UK, the Regents Park Lions defeating the Hammersmith Magpies in the Conference match and Wimbledon edging out North London in the Premiership division.

After following international footy for some time, and reporting on it in detail for over a year, it was a pleasure to meet so many people I have dealt with by email, online forums and phone. It was also great to see the Cup in the flesh having been unable to attend the inaugural 2002 event.

So many people have expressed opinions, mostly positive but some negative, about the Cup and its role in football and whether the AFL should do more. Having read such comments here and elsewhere, and seen the tournament first hand, and debated and discussed the issues for some time now, including during the event with many other international footy supporters, I thought it would be a good opportunity to offer my own opinions about the 2005 Cup - hopefully well-founded thoughts but nevertheless just personal opinions.

Scot Palmer, prominent football writer for Melbourne's Sunday Herald-Sun, published a short article this week on the performance of Carlton's O'hAilpin brothers, whom he believes may be on course for senior list promotions next season.

Powerhouse AFL club Collingwood is preparing to turn around their poor on-field performance in 2005 with a post-season training camp - possibly to be held in Arizona.

Australian Football League clubs Sydney and the Kangaroos will take professional Australian rules to the US when they clash in Los Angeles in January.

As reported earlier Australian cable TV network FOXTEL will show the 2005 International Cup Grand Final, between New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, on their FOXFooty Channel. Details are below.

The United States Revolution went home brimming with confidence after completing the double against the 2002 International Cup champions Ireland and finishing third in the tournament.

The Samoan Bulldogs overcame inaccurate kicking and a committed Great Britain Bulldogs outfit to finish the tournament on a high note and secure fifth place in their final match of the 2005 International Cup (on August 13th).

In their final seeding match of the 2005 International Cup, at Optus Oval last Saturday 13th August, the Samurai were finally able to get their running game going to find space and use precision passing to cut a swathe through the embattled Spanish side.

World Footy News hopes you've enjoyed our coverage of the 2005 Australian Football International Cup. What we have provided would not have been possible without the assistance of many people from around the world. We would like to encourage all our readers to visit the primary websites of the other countries involved in the Cup. The sites will vary in coverage depth, depending on the resources available to them, e.g. Ireland's prime mover is in fact a player, so he obviously had his hands full during the tournament and had more to worry about than a website. Here we list all country sites of the participating nations. And visit our Links section for other countries too.

Team Canada broke their 2005 International Cup drought with a comfortable win over the much improved South Africans, although not without a scare in the third quarter. This was despite resting some of their better players such as gutsy midfielder Jason Robinson to give everyone a fair run in the series.