World Footy News

As the AFL’s JLT Community Series pre-season competition wriggles its way around the country, North Queensland is preparing for its own extravaganza of AFL talent across March as first Townsville and then Cairns host matches. Townsville gets under way this weekend when the Gold Coast Suns and the Geelong Cats met in their JLT fixture. Cairns will then host the Round 1 AFL match between the Gold Coast Suns and North Melbourne Kangaroos.

The city of Townsville was looking forward to the Gary Ablett grudge match. With Ablett leaving the Sun and returning to his native Geelong last trade season, it gave the local fans the chance to watch an old-fashioned stoush between two past and present cat owners. Sadly, a hamstring injury will see Ablett ruled out of the match.

But, the people of Townsville would not be too disheartened. They will still host a great game of footy between the rising Suns from their home state and a Geelong side than has enjoyed an era of success – including three flags – since 2007.

They say history is written by the victors.  In this case the victors are the Kingdom Kangaroos and this version of their historic three-peat was submitted to us by Sandy Bell.

The Kingdom Kangaroos won the annual Preseason Bawbag Cup for the 3rd time in 3 years on Saturday 24th March. The annual warm up tournament competed by the Tyne Tee Tigers, West Lothian Eagles and Fife’s own Kingdom Kangaroos.

The Darwin Buffaloes have taken an enormous stride towards winning their first NTFL premiership since the 2005/06 season by downing the Nightcliff Tigers in the Qualifying Final at TIO Stadium. It sets up Second Semi-Final showdown with Southern Districts Crocs next weekend – the team that won their last premiership the following year in 2006/07.

Nightcliff enjoyed the early running, hitting the scoreboard regularly and heading to the first break with a 17-point lead. The Buffaloes were desperate to bridge the gap, and did so by narrowing the Nightcliff lead to just two points by the half time break. By the final change, score were level in a tight tussle – the ideal finals match.

It was tough going for both the Greater Western Sydney Giants and the Adelaide Crows at Blacktown International Sports Park in Sydney, as they played out the first draw of the 2018 AFLW season in wet conditions.

Image Source: Twitter @GWSGIANTS

Neither of the teams was able to break away with clean disposal and this is what’s expected in wet weather football. It was an extremely physical brand of football by both teams from the first siren to the final siren and it was a credit to both teams to play with such a high intensity and skill for the entire match. This showed at the final siren with nothing separating both teams.

The colloquially, and probably somewhat inappropriately, named Bawbag Cup was played on the weekend at the Leith Academy in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was a great day for the Kingdom Kangaroos as they defended the title they won last year in a three-team round-robin competition. The competition was made all the more historic with the West Lothian Eagles taking the field as an official AFL Scotland/SARFL team. It was also the first game for the Tyne Tees Tigers as a new member of the SARFL competition in 2018.

The West Lothian Eagles hit the field first against the more experienced Kangaroos. The final deficit was a four goal loss, but they were not blown off the park. According to their Facebook page, the only things that let the Eagles down was the lack of experience and game knowledge – two areas which will improve almost automatically the more games they play. The club was delighted with the form of the “first gamers” that took the field.

The two clubs that run under the banner of the Paris Cocks fought out their rescheduled Round One match yesterday in a clash hosted by the newly formed Antony Blues in the south of Paris. In an important match for both teams – the Cockerels to stay in the race for top two come finals time, and the Cockatoos to stay in the finals race – it was the Cockerels that were victorious by 21-points.

The Cockatoos were in the hunt at every change, being behind by less than three goals most of the match. But the kicking efficiency, especially near goal, of the Cockerels was superior. This was highlighted by the Cockerels having 19 scoring shots for the match compared to 23 for the Cockatoos, yet still winning by a comfortable margin.

The Pies win in an upset over the Dees by 34 points in hot conditions up in TIO Traeger Park in Alice Springs. In this match the Dees donned their new Indigenous Guernsey designed by their Indigenous player Alisha Newman.

Image Source: @CollingwoodFCW

The Pies started the match very well as they had a lot of the football, but they just could not score. This changed in the second quarter as the Pies did get reward for their effort on the scoreboard and the Pies continued to be all over the Dees in the third term as well. The Pies looked like a totally different team tonight from the previous three rounds with clean and slick ball movement against a premiership favourite in the Dees.

The Brisbane Lions won by 7 points over the Fremantle Dockers in a game of good old fashion wet weather football at the South Pine Sports Complex in Brisbane. This match was a real arm wrestle in trying conditions for both teams who played with high intensity and fierceness.
Image Source: Twitter @lionsaflw

There was one stoppage after another, which made the opening term a real stoppage fest and this is expected when the conditions are wet. It was a very physical brand of football to begin.
 

 There have been many different mechanisms of bringing the game of Australia football to the world. And while Aussie rules football might not be new to Indonesia and even to Bali the game is still largely unknown by most Indonesians.

A group of school children in Bali have been experiencing an education in Australian football over the past few weeks and this weekend will take part in a tournament to be played in the new AFLX format.

The organisation that is putting in all the hard work to make this happen is Via Sport. Via Sport provides innovative education programs for students & volunteers through utilising sport as a medium for diplomacy & development.

Mumbai Footy, in association with Reclink India and Reclink Australia, has commenced the promotion of their 2018 All India Footy Carnival to be played in October. According to their press releases and accompanying itinerary for Australians to travel over to Mumbai for the events, visitors and local fans alike will be treated to an amazing football experience.

According to their combined promotional releases, “We [Mumbai Footy and Reclink India] are thrilled to announce the program for the 2018 All India Footy Carnival. Now timed as the perfect post-season footy trip in October, the carnival also coincides with Diwali, the biggest celebration on the Hindu festival calendar.”

“This year we take in the thriving footy scene in Jaipur before heading to Mumbai for three days of footy development, competition and fun. For many past participants this trip has been a hugely rewarding experience. This is a deep immersion into the India experience with the common language and love of footy at its core.”

The growth of Australian Rules football in Colombia, South America, has been rapid in the past couple of years since the arrival of the Bogotá Bulldogs. Last week that growth accelerated even faster when the club held its first ever draft of local players and created three teams in the Colombian capital – the Bogotá Bombers, Bogotá Bullants and DC Aguilas – for a local three-team competition.

With a view to building three teams of reasonably equal standard, recruiters for the teams made selections based on both team needs as well as competitive fairness. The result is three new entities that will do battle across the year in a round-robin format of games (full details to be advised).

In the first ever AFLW pride match between the Western Bulldogs and Carlton at the VU Whitten Oval, the Bulldogs ran away by 73 points over the Blues. The Bulldogs kept the Blues scoreless for the first half of the match and the Blues only managed to score their first goal with three and half minutes left in the third term.

Image Source: Twitter @BulldogsW

They also kept the Blues scoreless in the final quarter. This dominant attacking display by the Bulldogs had them record the highest ever AFLW score of 86 points beating Melbourne’s score from last year at Casey Fields against Fremantle. Bonnie Toogood and Brooke Lochland were the standouts up forward for the Dogs both combining for 10 goals.