After coming close a few times this season, the past weekend saw a record five Irish former GAA footballers playing in the same round in the AFL.   

This past weekend Collingwood selected Martin Clarke and Caolan Mooney.   Mooney started the game and was substituted off for Clarke in the third quarter.  Carlton's Zach Tuohy and Brisbane's Pearce Hanley were also selected to start at the weekend, and the record fifth starter was a late inclusion when emergency Niall McKeever received a last minute call up for Brisbane.  The stats for the five can be seen below.

Members of AFL London clubs the Wandworth Demons and London Swans will feature in an ad for Australian telecommunications company Telstra, to air on Australian TV during the London Olympics.

The ad features the song "Down Under" by Men At Work, which is being re-released as a solo project by the song's co-writer member Colin Hay. Besides the Demons and Swans, the new recording features expat Aussies singing on a boat on the Thames and in a London pub.

"Down Under is ultimately a song about celebration, and in the case of the 2012 Olympics, a mass calling of sorts to inspire our Olympians so they know they are not alone," Hay said.

"For my part, to travel around Australia and to London singing ‘Down Under’ and leading the chorus was a great honour. Hopefully our athletes will feel connected by the voices of many."

For more, read here.

Voted through at the 2011 National Conference, AFL Great Britain officially changed its registered title to AFL England. Originally brought into being as the British Australian Rules Football League (BARFL) and then updated to AFL GB in 2006 to bring it more into line with the AFL, the organisation has renamed to clarify its remit in the British Isles.

The Welsh and Scottish competitions have been fully independent for several years, though there is cooperation between the bodies in several areas. Discussions will follow between the 3 national organisations and AFL Europe on the future of the GB Bulldogs, the representative team who have historically represented all 3 at full-sided international competition (European Championships and International Cup). Individual national squads normally take part in the smaller sided home nations internationals and annual Euro Cup, where the England Dragonslayers were 2008 and 2009 victors.
 

The Welsh Australian Rules Football League (WARFL) can today claim to have some of the best non-Aussie 'Footy' players in Britain. This weekend saw the AFL England Brit Cup hosted in Reading, and the WARFL Red Devils took home the Gold against 5 other teams representing Aussie Rules Leagues in England.

The tournament was a 12-a-side round robin competition of 20 minute games, with a strict ruling of no Australians allowed. With the coaches of the Great Britain Bulldogs watching, every team had the cream of British talent on display in one of the toughest competitions of the year. The Devils were made up of players from teams in the WARFL as well as Welsh International Players.

Thanks to Josh Davey for this report.

Collingwood’s Caolan Mooney will make his debut on Saturday afternoon, against Fremantle at the MCG, after a breakthrough five goal performance in the VFL last weekend.

The 19 year-old Irishman, from Rostrevor, County Down, has played only 13 games of Australian  football but his speed and quick grasp of the code has seen him improve at a rapid rate in the mere months he has been with club.

After being signed during the 2010 season , Mooney was rookie listed as an international draftee last December and has now been elevated to the senior list to replace Lachie Keefe. Keefe has been placed on the long term injury list after suffering a serious knee injury in the match against Adelaide in round nine.

The last two years haven't been too kind to Australian football in North East England. The area was once a hotbed of the sport in the UK, with a strong, five-team league. However, by 2011 it had become a barren wasteland in footy terms, with all clubs bar one having folded due to a combination of factors including waining interest, lack of facilities and funding. The one remaining team, Newcastle Centurions, is currently on hiatus, meaning no football has been played in the North East since 2010.

This is soon to change with the formation of the Tyne-Tees Tigers, an amalgamation of the now defunct clubs Gateshead, Durham, Middlesborough & Hartlepool. The club is based in Newcastle Upon Tyne, but represents the whole North East region and as such draws players from Northumberland, Tyneside, Wearside and Teeside. A lot of work has been done over the past few months to get things up and running and the first training session will take place on Tuesday 22nd May.

The club won't be playing competitive football in 2012 as the AFL England leagues have all already begun their seasons. The short-term goal for the Tigers is to host a round of the AFL England Central/North West (C/NW) season on July 14th. In that round the Tyne-Tees club will compete in a social game against a team made up of C/NW players. The club's long-term goal is to join the C/NW league as a competitive team in 2013.

 With the selection of Tommy Walsh by the Sydney Swans this week a new Irishman comes into the AFL fold.  And along with the selection of in form Pearce Hanley, Zach Tuohy and Marty Clarke on Thursday night, Niall McKeever was named on an extended bench for the Lions match against GWS this weekend.  

Perhaps it was the rapid debuts of Marty Clarke for Collingwood and Michael Quinn for Essendon that set the expectations high for Irish recruits.  They made their AFL debuts after being at their clubs only months after arriving from Ireland. 

But for 24 year old Tommy Walsh it has been a long waiting game as his chance to debut at AFL level never came at St Kilda.  Whether it was a matter of the timing never quite being right, or that Ross Lyon did not have confidence in the Irishman - in the two years at Saint Kilda he was confined to the VFL.