The following article is from the Essendon Football Club’s website detailing the club’s decision to recruit young Irishman, Conor McKenna as an International Rookie.

 

Essendon Football Club is delighted to announce Conor McKenna will join the Bombers as a rookie listed player under the club's Alternative Talent Program.

The exciting Irish prospect has accepted a two-year contract with Essendon and will be the second player to be placed on the club’s Rookie B List, following Johnny Rayner’s appointment last year.

McKenna qualifies as a Rookie B as he has not been registered in an Australian football competition for the past three years.

 

 

Malcolm Ashwood's article about the 2014 SANFL Grand Final appeared last week on The Footy Almanac website.  Norwood's three in a row performance continues the Dynasties theme from Wes Hull's earlier WFN article.

SANFL Grand Final – Norwood v Port Adelaide: The Greatest Win of All

 

The seasons have been completed in AFL competitions across northern and central Queensland over the past few weekends. Following is a brief rundown on each of the major competitions. For the victors, they are still quite possibly celebrating whilst other clubs will take a break from the game for a short while before plotting their assaults on the 2015 seasons.

 

AFL Cairns

The Port Douglas Crocs won their fifth senior premiership when they defied recent history, and the patterns of the home and away season, when they dispatched the Cairns Saints. History says that Cairns Saints have been to eight consecutive grand finals for five flags since 2007. They finished the home and away rounds in second place behind the much improved South Cairns Cutters.

 

But Port Douglas was not deterred as they defeated both teams in the preliminary and grand finals to surprise many. The season was memorable for the Crocs as they also won the Reserve grade flag and the Under 17 Colts flag.

Celebrate football and cultural harmony later this month as the 2014 AFL season draws to a close.

The whole Perth (WA) football community is invited to attend the Harmony Cup Carnival which aims to unite communities, and showcase talented culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CaLD) players.

The carnival will occur on the 30th of September and will see the Edmund Rice Senior Lions take on Nic Naitanui Academy at Barry Britton Reserve at 1pm. 

Measuring a player’s value solely on their Brownlow Medal votes is a highly inaccurate science and not entirely fair on players. But they can be used as a form of comparison over time, and in this area Brisbane Lions player Pearce Hanley is moving along a career path which has similarities to Jim Stynes.

Pearce Hanley polled nine votes at last night’s prestigious Brownlow Medal count. The award is given to the best and fairest player in the AFL based on the issuing of votes by the field umpires on a 3, 2, 1 basis for each game. Last night it was West Coast Eagles player, Matt Priddis, who won the award on 26 votes from Gary Ablett (22 votes) and Lance ‘Buddy’ Franklin (22 votes) in equal second place. Fremantle star Nat Fyfe polled 25 votes but was ineligible to win due to being suspended by the tribunal during the season.

Pearce was a long way back in the field, but he has now polled 21 votes in his career, all over the past three seasons.

 

Elliott Takolu (left) had held a dream for a very long time. Having fallen in love with the game of Australian Rules football back in his home city of Lae in Papua New Guinea, Elliott always wanted to get to Australia and try his luck.

After many failed attempts to get to Australia, usually through visa issues, Elliott finally made it this year. Even though he arrived well into the new season, he joined AFL Cairns club, the South Cairns Cutters. Living with a host family, Lance and Sue Dixon, Elliott finally played out his dream.

Cutters’ president Steven Begg was high in praise for Elliott’s commitment to the game and the club, as well acknowledging him as a fine young man. Steven was impressed in equal parts by Elliott’s attitude and application to his footy as well as his work off the field helping club and family in any way he could. It is this combination of ground-breaker and role model which Elliott will take back to Lae and use to inspire others to make the jump.

Port Adelaide tonight selected South Australia's Johann Wagner as the inaugural winner of Fox8’s ‘The Recruit’, guaranteeing him a place on the club’s rookie list for the 2015 Toyota AFL Premiership Season as a Category B player.

The Australian Pay TV channel Fox8 show had two potential international recruits Padraig Lucey (who featured for Ireland at IC14) and Mark Cisco (an Ameican who had previously tested at AFL combines) who performed well but did not make the final three.  

Wagner was selected at a special NAB AFL Draft meeting held in Melbourne tonight.

The winner was determined following a voting process involving all clubs ranking the final three Recruits - Queensland’s Bradie Foster, Victoria’s Chris Moreland and Wagner.

Left: Padraig Lucey.