"Power Invests in China" Port Adelaide Power has this week signed its first Chinese born recruit, Team China captain Chen Shaoliang, 23, on an International Scholarship for the club's academy at Alberton, South Australia.

Chen Shaoliang arrived on Tuesday 15th March, to join the Port Adelaide Magpies (Port Adelaide Powers' reserves side that plays in the SANFL) and is expected to be selected to play in the next couple of months.

He joins Croatian International, Josip Habljak (at Sturt) in attempting to break in to footy at SANFL level in season 2016. Ultimately he hopes to become an AFL listed rookie. He expects to become a trailblazer in the untapped Chinese market while playing football in the SANFL and studying English at UniSA in Adelaide.

Women Debut In South China AFL

South China Australian Rules Football League (SCAFL) welcomed their first female players in the recent Round#2 tournament in Macau on the weekend.

Played at the Macau International School two ladies played for the first time in this competition, one as a guest and the other very likely to become a regular player.

The first of the two ladies playing on the day was Jess Cole from Melbourne Australia, (more of her story later).

The 2016 AFL Asia season got underway in Yangon City, Myanmar.

After a hard fought game with scores tied at half time the visiting Jakarta Bintangs out lasted the hosts the Myanmar Fighting Cocks by a score of 63-53 yesterday in the inaugural Cocks Plate Contest, held on the “Hen House” pitch at Star City.

Despite a raucous crowd chanting tai kyet – or “Fighting cocks!” – for most of the game, the home team faltered in the fourth quarter, giving way in their own end to allow three goals in the last 15 minutes.

The Jakarta team started fast and scored in the opening minute after Myanmar’s All-Asia ruckman Conor Smith was outjumped by a much smaller, local Indonesian player. But the Cocks battled back with two goals from the ageless wonder Julian Clark, whose sticky hands enabled him to mark two kicks. At halftime, the sides were level, 5-3-33 to 5-3-33.

The following is a snippet from the AFL Japan website.

AFL Scholarship Player Shoki Mukotaka from Senshu Powers Club flew from Narita Airport on 25th February to Melbourne to practice and train with Box Hill North Football Club. He will 'live' and train at the club for three weeks until 18th March.

The scholarship program also has the players homestay with members of the club so as to experience life in Australia.

"In Australia stay is homestay in the house of team-mate, has become a program that also experience life in Australia."

The AFL Japan Scholarship has run for a number of years now and several Samurai players previously participated in the Scholarship.

Genki Tanaka being one such scholarship holder who spent a season in Melbourne playing at Box Hill North also studying English and acquiring AFL qualifications and accreditations in coaching and umpiring.

Sohei Yoshida also spent five weeks at Box Hill North prior to the 2014 International Cup.

Back in December 2015 it was reported that four Borneo Bears National players had been invited to join the Darwin Waratah’s to train and play in the 2015-2016 NTFL season.

"One of the major highlights for 2015 which was organized and championed by Bears President Tommy Commerford and Bears Coach Shane Kruger, was a cross country AFL development agreement between the Borneo Bears and the Darwin Waratah’s".

Today in the NT News we see how this experiment has progressed, "WARATAH’S bold experiment to bring four Borneo-born footballers to the Top End paid dividends yesterday when utility Timbul Kukuh Santoso played his first league game. The 22-year-old “Borneo Express’’ roamed between half forward and half back, producing a 12 possession game that showed he is comfortable at that level."

The Vietnam Swans will host the 17th AFL Asian Championships at RMIT Saigon campus on Saturday 15 October, 2016.

Confirmation was announced at the AFL Asia Annual General Meeting which was held on January 27th 2016.

This will be the first time that the Swans will have hosted “Asian Champs”, which saw over 400 competitors travel to Bangkok in 2015.

The new two-division format with a 12-a-side second division focussing on a commitment to promote local development was hailed a big success in Bangkok and will be continued in Saigon.

The 2015/16 season for the Waratah Warriors in the Northern Territory Football League has largely been one to forget.  Whilst the fixture shows a winless season to date, the club has used the year as a developmental period to grow the next crop of star players ready to again see finals action. Part of their experiments involved the opportunities given to four Borneo players, one of which played his first senior game recently. The following article from Grey Morris at the NT News gives the details of their journey.

 

 

NTFL club Waratah gets some international flavour with

Timbul Kukuh Santoso making his Premier League debut

 

 

WARATAH’S bold experiment to bring four Borneo-born footballers to the Top End paid dividends yesterday when utility Timbul Kukuh Santoso played his first league game.

Indonesia has gone through a huge change over the past 3 to 4 years in regards to the energy sector which has led to a great number of expats leaving Indonesia and particularly from Balikpapan, the center of energy in Indonesia.

Back in earlier days the expat players would invite their Indonesian national drivers and office staff down to training and consequently fund them to local tournament tours, it was expats that formed 90% of the club players list and membership.

However, The Borneo Bears through a number of methods with great support and perseverance from the Bears Committee, has survived the exodus of expats and the Bears have turned their player list around which now constitutes approximately 90% Indonesian National players and continues to grow.

 

 

The Tokyo Goannas triumphed in the AFL Japan Grand Final played out on Saturday 21st November at the Yokohama Country and Athletic Club.
In what turned out to be a 'come from behind' thriller, the Tokyo Goannas over came a Tokyo Bay Suns three quarter time 11 point advantage with a 4 goal to 2 goal last quarter to take out their seventh Top League Grand Final by a mere 2 points, final scores being 10 - 8 (68) to 10 - 6 (66).

It was a hard fought battle from the outset between the two powerhouse teams in the AFL Japan Top League East, with the Suns kicking away to 4 goal to one first quarter.

With a pair of goals each from Nakamura Hisaosame (Suns) and N. Payne (Goannas) the Suns maintained their 3 goal lead in the second quarter, 6 -3 (39) to 3 - 3(21)