Melbourne Football Club Media Release

This Sunday, the Melbourne Football Club and The Reach Foundation will together celebrate Jim’s life at the MCG,leading into the Demons’ Round 4 clash against the Western Bulldogs.

The Jim Stynes Tribute Game provides a chance for all Victorians to gather in celebration of his contributions to football, the Reach Foundation and the greater community.

Reader submitted story from Ireland's Australian Rules Football League season 2012 Round 1 contest between Leeside Lions and Midwest Magpies.

In their first game of the season, the Leeside Lions continued their excellent league form from last year, beating the Midwest Magpies by a score of 9.12 (65) to 4.9 (33).

The Leesiders brought up 12 men, and were missing a number of key players for a variety of reasons. Crucially though, the three Lions who represented the European Titans a mere days previous in Paris made the long trip back to the West in time. The match was the highlight of the week, contested between two teams with genuine Premiership title hopes for the coming year. After a narrow loss in the Grand Final last year, the Lions were out to set the record straight with a number of new recruits in their ranks, who played a major role in the win.

The Pies chose to avail of the stiff breeze coming in off the Atlantic, and took an early lead, pinning the Lions into their own half but unable to convert the full six on many occasions. Good defensive work and pressure from the Southern side gave the home team no inch, and although down 15 points, the gap was attainable in the strong wind.

In the first ever AFL representative match played on French soil, the Australia Under 18's team provided a great exhibition of exciting football to overwhelm the enthusiastic European Titans by 167 points in France on Thursday, April 12.

Played at the picturesque Chantilly Polo Club, just outside of Paris, on a manicured oval field, the young Australian side had great mobile marking targets up forward in Jake Stringer and James Stewart.

The team received great supply from its exciting midfield lead by Nick Vlastuin, Emmanuel Irra and Jason Pongracic. When the Titans went forward it found it almost impossible to get past the Aussie defense with tall defender Lachie Plowman and the versatile Lachie Whitfield reading the play superbly and setting up many forward thrusts.

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.