The Dublin Demons men’s team are regulars to the Haggis Cup each year. This year their sister team ‘Dublin Angels’ are heading to the tournament in what will be the first time any women’s teams have participated. The Kilrea Kookaburra’s will also be travelling to Edinburgh with Irish Banshees coach Andrew Hickey in tow.

The two teams played against each other last year only a couple of times, the Angels remaining undefeated. Last year the executive committee were more focused on the International Cup, so this year they want to shift their focus on building and cementing the local teams in the women’s league. They are hoping for a big increase in numbers and more opportunities to play matches, as well as also hoping to have a Cork team up and running this year. Already the Dublin Angels have 6 new players, 3 of which will play their first match at the Haggis cup.

Australian Under 18’s have defeated European Legion by 134 points in the AFL international match held at Surrey Sports Park in London on Saturday April 7.

Lead by High Performance Coach Michael O’Loughlin, the AFL’s future stars dominated early, kicking 15 goals in the first half, with Troy Menzel, brother of Daniel at the Geelong Cats, kicking five goals in a brilliant individual performance.

The European Legion, coached by former Sydney Swan and AFL Ambassador Tadhg Kennelly, matched the Australians in the third quarter with only one goal apiece resulting.

The Legion continued to compete fiercely up until the end of the match but was out-classed by the silky skills of the Australian side.

Most valuable player awards were presented to midfielder Nick Vlastuin from the Australian team and defender Levi Fernandez from Great Britain won the award for European Legion.

Despite their modest performance at last year’s International Cup, the GB Bulldogs can now boast something that no other country can answer to: the rise of two of their players, Adam Ballard and Anthony Trigg, through football to VFL level.

Though the numbers of foreign players are now increasing, at AFL level to date, all of those players have either been brought up in Australia, or were professionals or upcoming youngsters recruited directly from other sports. Ballard and Trigg however, started playing the game in the UK, before moving over to Australia and joining local teams.

Former England Dragonslayers international Adam Ballard learnt his trade as president of the Durham Saints before joining the Prahran Assumption Football Club in Melbourne, 2011 Premiers in the VAFA Division 3. After a successful tour with the GB Bulldogs at IC11, Ballard was picked up by VFL club Port Melbourne and is currently training as a ruckman in the reserves.

In the bustling southern suburbs of Zagreb, just south of the Sava river, the Zaprudje Australian rules football club has recently announced a sister club arrangement with AFL newcomers GWS Giants and taken on the name of Zaprudje Giants. The club was formed in the middle of 2011 by some former and current Croatian Knights, and is the first neighbourhood team in Zagreb, a formula which could be replicated in future years.

Most locals in Zagreb are quite loyal to their neighbourhoods or "kvarts" in a manner described by locals as being akin to local gangs, however without any serious violence. The formation of the Zaprudje Giants and their recent partner-club arrangement with GWS is considered to be a very positive step in the consolidation of Australian rules football in Zagreb and Croatia as a whole.

Thanks to Tony Grguric from the CAAF for this story.

VFL team the Box Hill Hawks have defeated the Australian Under 18 team by 31 points in the curtain raiser to Richmond v Carlton at the MCG today.

In an entertaining game, after being down by nine points at half time, the stronger and more experienced Hawks overcame the Australian youngsters, kicking five goals in the last quarter to win convincingly.  Clearly their upcoming European opponents will have their hands full with these young Aussie guns. 

On the 17th of March was AFL England Central-North West League’s St Patrick’s Day tournament, hosted by the Manchester Mosquitoes at their home ground in Burnage. Six teams participated in the event, with the hosts facing off against teams from Sheffield, Huddersfield, Nottingham, Wolverhampton and Birmingham.

WFN managed to catch up with the Huddersfield Rams before the tournament, and Sheffield Thunder's coach afterwards.

 

On the 10th of March on Clapham Common, London, the Sussex Swans and some of the AFL London teams got together with London’s Kanga Footy touch players to compete in the Kanga Footy pre-season competition. Unlike normal football played in AFL London, Kanga Footy is 9-a-side, non-contact and the teams are required to have at least two female players on the field at any time. To further encourage the involvement of women in the game, the rules are modified so a goal kicked by a female full forward is awarded 9 points.

Eight teams took part in the competition: Two Kanga Footy “All Stars” and combined “Allied Forces” teams, the Sussex Swans, and five AFL London teams- Wandsworth Demons, Wimbledon Hawks, North London Lions, Putney Magpies and West London Wildcats. The games were two halves of 8 minutes, played on two ovals on the Common.

Australian Football in Scotland is following the trend towards "metro footy" leagues seen in other countries, i.e. having a main club in a city also break up into smaller sides for a local league, without taking away from the city competing in a wider competition.

The Glasgow sixes league had been running for a year now and is a great way of playing footy in a semi competitive environment. The format is simple, two teams compete in a six a side game on a shortened pitch.  This year will be slightly different in that with increased participation teams have bigger numbers and so where possible if a game can be played 9-a-side or even 12-a-side then that shall be the format. Lessons were learnt from last year and this year the league has been reduced to three teams to help make sure teams had enough numbers to play a game without borrowing players from another team too much.

 

It is clearly a hard road for the Irish rookies to make it in the AFL. In the past 12 months we have seen Jamie O'Reilly and Michael Quinn delisted after promising starts but failure to back up in year two, Setanta o'hAilpin delisted by Carlton, Tommy Walsh frustrated by lack of opportunity leave St Kilda and Richmond rookie John Heslin going home before preseason was even finished.

Of course there have been some positives too, particularly the form of Hanley and McKeever at Brisbane and Zac Tuohy at Carlton, and the return of Marty Clarke to Collingwood - but they will all admit it has been a hard road.

So it is a great disappointment and potentially a big setback over the weekend to Collingwood's Paul Cribbin who was hospitalised after an unprovoked attack at 2am. The club says he was under the influence of alcohol and will have a case to answer for that later on, let's hope this does not set his journey as an AFL hopeful back to any great degree.

The statement released by Collingwood on Sunday can be read below.