Tom hurls his considerable frame into a contest and comes out with the ball. From 30 metres out, he goals: a celebrated first kick, first goal situation. Seconds earlier, Garang had thrown himself fearlessly into a pack. He didn’t get the ball, but his effort caused a spillage and the ball eventually floated forward to Tom. Running frantically to stop all of this was Modasir from the other team.

This passage could have described almost any game, anywhere. It could also have described any three junior players in any game across the nation. But there was a difference.

Tom Daniel’s family is from Uganda and Garang Asheen’s and Modasir Bahar’s are from Sudan. And the setting was under the Friday night lights at Cazaly’s Stadium in Cairns.

Majak Daw, the North Melbourne sensation whose opening 18 minutes of senior AFL footy earlier this year captured the imagination of the footy public across the nation, has triggered interest in Australian Rules football nationally. Cairns, in North Queensland, has not been immune. Already there is evidence in local competition that kids with African heritage are taking to the game.

Yarrabah Aboriginal Community is located southeast of Cairns in North Queensland and it is known as a “Paradise by the Sea”. It is hard to argue. The 45 kilometre drive by road from Cairns is lovely, but reaches a climax as it climbs the Murray Prior Range. Shortly after passing beneath the summit of Mount Yarrabah, and its collection of communication towers, the descent begins. Then, at Angel Bend, one of the finest views in the region is witnessed as you look down, seemingly vertically, on the township of Yarrabah adjacent to the glistening waters of Mission Bay.

A spokesperson for the Yarrabah Shire Council stated, “Located in the dead centre of the Yarrabah Township is a sports field that was developed between 2000 and 2001 for the purpose of encouraging Yarrabah kids to take up athletics. It is said that Aboriginal children have natural skills. A new footy oval in Yarrabah would give those kids a chance to show their skills in a variety of other sports like Australian Rules football and not just Rugby League and athletics.”

A permanent new feature of the Cairns AFL landscape will be played out on the streets and football fields of this North Queensland city next Sunday 19th May.

According to Shaun Nancarrow, Club Development Officer for AFL Cairns, “Local club, the Cairns City Lions, supported by their Event Partners – Harbrow Mentoring, Cairns Regional Council and the Cairns Post -will host the first Walk for Reconciliation along the Cairns Esplanade, departing from the Sound Stage at Fogarty Park and making their way to the Osprey function zone 2.5 kilometres away. Local indigenous health group Wuchopperen will provide healthy snacks at the conclusion of the event while the walkers who wish to attend the footy wait to be transported to the Holloway’s Beach Sporting Complex for the second annual ‘Dreamtime by the Sea’ game.”

This event is largely the creation of the Cairns City Lions football club. They plan to host these events to recognise the contribution and commitment Indigenous players and their families bring to the game of Australian Rules football at a local and national level.

Victoria Metro have retained their Youth Girls Champions title by defeating closest rival Western Australia by 6.4 (40) to 3.7 (25).

Meanwhile in the other finals, the up and coming Queensland side just scraped past the combined Victoria Country/ Tasmania team in a nail biting 3.7(25) to 3.2(20) scrap for third spot, whilst the underperforming New South Wales / Australian Capital Territory team was blown over by the developing South Australia / Northern Territory team 6.6(42) to 1.1(7) in the battle for fifth.

[youtube:ldGapiPfyAI]

The AFL has announced the top 50 female players in Australia as part of the Women's Draft which precedes the "Women's AFL" exhibition game. The game will be played as a curtain raiser to the Women’s Round AFL game between Melbourne FC and Western Bulldogs at the MCG on the 29th of June.

The two AFL Clubs were given the opportunity to select the players from the draft to represent them in the curtain raiser. Also selected were two of Australia’s top female coaches: Michelle Cowan has been appointed coach of the Melbourne FC women’s team, and Peta Searle has been appointed coach of the Western Bulldogs women’s team.

Unsurprisingly, players from the VWFL dominated the selection, with powerhouse Darebin Falcons notching up nothing short of 10 players on the list, 3 of whom where named in the top 10.

A spokesperson from Darebin Falcons told us, “The girls certainly did their club proud. It was a successful night for Darebin, but more importantly for women's football as a whole. It’s fantastic to see these women receiving a reward for their effort.”

Across town, Melbourne University’s team had 6 players selected, whilst in Western Australia, Coastal Titans managed 4 players on the list and Swan Districs had two players named in the top 10.

Representatives from New South Wales, Queensland and South Australia also found their way into the top 50, echoing the promising results from the recent Youth Girls National Championships, and showing that the gap between the two top states and their closest rivals is slowly closing.

Read the full story for the full list of the top 50 female players, their home clubs and the AFL team they have been selected to play for.

On Wednesday, May the 15th, the AFL will select the top 50 female players in Australia, with AFL chief executive officer Andrew Demetriou calling out the names of the top 10 players.

Friends and family of the nominees will be invited to attend the draft at simultaneous presentations in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney, which will be linked up by video conferencing.

The draft and the game are both initiatives of the Melbourne Football Club, main sponsor of Australia’s top women’s league, the VWFL, and the Melbourne sector of the draft will be conducted in the club’s boardroom.

From the draft, the two teams that will represent the Melbourne and Western Bulldogs Football Clubs during the inaugural AFL Women’s Exhibition game will be selected. The women’s teams will face off at the MGC as a curtain raiser to the AFL game played by the two clubs during AFL Women’s Round on Saturday June 29.

The Tiwi Islands off the coast of Darwin in the Northern Territory are famed for the Tiwi Bombers Football Club, whose number includes many first rate Indigenous players. However it is not just the men who are skilled with the football, as the Tiwi Bombers have long had a Youth Girls side to develop the female talent too. On the back of this, two of the Tiwi Islands female players, Gladys Puruntatameri and J-Lee Puautjimi, have been “loaned” to Melbourne’s Diamond Creek Football Club, in the southern state of Victoria, to train and play in Australia’s top women’s football league: the VWFL.

This unusual player transfer is part of the Tapalinga (Shining Star) Award, a leadership program created by Diamond Creek WFC and the Northern Territory based Starwin Management. As well as being allowed to play in the VWFL for up to five games this season, the award also includes three visits to Melbourne. The first excursion was from April 4-15 and included playing two games of football for the Creekers, visits to three AFL clubs, tickets to an AFL match and entry into a Melbourne International Comedy Festival show.

“Football has a long history in the community of Wadeye that dates back to the start of the Mission in June of 1935. The families of Wadeye had their own traditional sport that involved throwing a man-made paperbark ball covered in kangaroo hide. However when the Mission arrived, Father Docherty (or Yile Ngala as he is referred to by the locals) and some indigenous men from Darwin, introduced the football and the art of kicking. From that point on AFL has been the game of choice for everyone in the community.”

This introduction to the footballing heritage of the Wadeye community is provided by Katrina Bushby, the Club Development Manager at the Wadeye Magic Football Club, in one of the many remote parts of the Northern Territory. Katrina’s keen insight into the development of the game is a great starting point for one of the more remarkable footy stories in Australia.

Wadeye, formerly known as Port Keats, is in the far north-west corner of the Northern Territory on the western boundary of the Daly River Reserve, near Hyland Bay. It is 230 kilometres by air from Darwin, and further by road – assuming the roads are open, as they are often cut by flooding during the “wet” season.