This Sunday the 27th of February sees the Glasgow Sharks kick-off their Super Six League at Glasgow Green. The Sharks Super Sixes is an intra club league made up of six aside teams from the Sharks players. The league is designed to help players gain more match experience, fitness and for those who want to play or try Aussie rules in a friendly semi competitive manner. The Sharks also hope in future to allow start-up teams in Scotland that perhaps cannot get the number of players required to play in the SARFL Competition proper to play in the sixes, as an induction to Aussie rules.

Sharks President and Coach Stephen Connor had asked for volunteers to be captains earlier in the year, and the first four that stepped forward would be the Captains. The Sharks that stepped forward were, Adam Jack, John McIntyre, Scott O`Hara and Ross Thomson. The Captains along with Stephen had the first ever Sixes Draft at the beginning of February to choose the teams, each Captain drew a number to determine who got first draft pick etc. players were selected by each captain in order until all those available had been put into 1 of 4 teams. Games will be played at Glasgow Green in the city centre on a shortened field and will consist of 2 x 20 minute halves, it's thought the central location and shortened format may capture the public interest as well as being a good tool to develop new players to the sport.

The Sharks Super Sixes is part of the ‘Sharks are circling’ campaign, aimed at getting more people in Glasgow and surrounding areas involved in Aussie Rules and along with this year’s Schools programme and other initiatives will help grow the game in Scotland. For more Information on the Sharks Super Sixes league including Fixtures, results and Stats please visit www.glasgowsharks.co.uk

The AFL Europe will soon welcome Ben MacCormack as its new Regional Manager, after the previous apointee Peter Romaniw had to return to Australia following visa problems.

Gerard Murphy says he was disappointed Romaniw could not stay in Europe, stating "He was doing an excellent job and we were disappointed that he couldn't stay with us. Peter is working for the AFL in Melbourne and is continuing to provide us with support from Australia until Ben starts in mid-March."

The AFL Europe only received its current name after last year's Euro Cup in Milan, with the move creating some talk in the international footy scene. Murphy explains that "At the initial meetings, there was lots of discussion about what the relationship with the AFL should 'look like'. It was agreed by the countries that we should have a strong relationship with the AFL and that this relationship should be fostered and developed to produce maximum benefits for the region."

"The decision to establish ourselves as the EAFA was taken in order to create a 'neutral' brand that would enable everyone to join regardless of previous alignments. However, 9 months later in Milan, it was decided by the general assembly that we should change our name to AFL Europe, pending some clarification from the AFL on a small number of queries."

"We now have a very close relationship with the AFL and we have just appointed our new Regional Manager, Ben MacCormack, a position funded by the AFL. The appointment of Tony Woods has also been an excellent step forward as he is able to deal with any concerns that we have promptly."

The AFL Italia have deciding to withdraw their men's team from the 2011 International Cup, with league president Nicola Giampaolo saying "Only in the last few days we have taken the hard decision to not go to the IC. The main reasons are the financial difficulties of funding a 30 person squad between players and staff, and the availability of the best squad of players for a period of three weeks."

Giampaolo remains upbeat about the AFL Italia's progress and believes they will be a strong position to compete in 2014. "We are a very young association. AFL Italia just stared kicking a footy around in mid 2009 and was formally registered in april 2010 and has already made huge steps forward both on the playing field (6th overall in the Euro Cup) and off the field hosting a great Euro Cup in Parabiago."

"We want to concentrate our attention on developing the national competetion and expanding the number of registered players and begin to play some 18-a-side matches. Our main goals are the European Championships in 2013 and the next International Cup in 2014 when we will have much more experience under our belt and will be able to field a competitive team."

Update: The AFL Italia women's team are still planning to attend, it is only the men's side that have withdrawn.

It was a first for Welsh ARFL club the Swansea Magpies on Tuesday 14th February 2011 where two of their senior players, Tim Atkins and Aled Morris, took Australian Rules Football into the classroom of Bishop Gore Comprehensive School. The club was invited by the local 5x60 officer, Louise Snelgrove, to introduce Aussie Rules to the Year 9 boys and girls.

The lesson went very well, with the children responding positively to a brand new sport that all but one of them had never heard of. The pupils are at a stage where they will soon choose which G.C.S.E. subjects they will take in years 10 and 11. The school were looking to use the session to help promote Physical Education G.C.S.E. and potentially offer an alternative pathway to football (soccer) and rugby. Maybe Aussie Rules will find its way into the curriculum at some point in the future.

The Australian Rules Football League of Ireland's preparations for the International Cup are in full swing, with the Green Machine taking the unorthodox step of announcing that they are aiming to field a team consisting of only around 50% players from the Irish domestic league.

The remaining fifteen in the squad of thirty are to be selected from Irish expats currently playing footy in Australia, a move which ARFLI President Ciaran O'Hara says reflects both their belief that the Warriors should contain the best Irishmen playing Australian Football wherever they are, and also the fact that a number of former ARFLI players are now playing Down Under, particularly since last year's financial crisis saw a large number of Irishmen emigrate.

With a large dose of Australian suburban and country footy experience, the Irish could be very tough to beat at the IC11, although O'Hara is expecting old rivals such as PNG, New Zealand, South Africa and Nauru to have stepped up in standard since 2008.

The 2011 International Cup will be the first to feature a women's division, with the USA, Ireland, Canada, PNG and Italy among those who have expressed an intereste to head to Australia.

Despite being relative newcomers to the international footy scene, the AFL Italia are planning to send both a men's and women's squad Down Under, after their women's side faced off against Ireland in Europe's first-ever international women's match last October.

Peta Lowry from the AFL Italia spoke to WFN about the Italian national women's team and their preparations.

The Australian Football League Germany will return to a six team competition in 2011, with the return of the Hamburg Dockers to the main draw.

A two division structure was implemented in 2009, to help Stuttgart ease into the league, allow Berlin a season to rebuild, and give the reserve teams from power clubs Rheinland and Munich somewhere to play. This hasn't been repeated since, with clubs instead starting to move towards the "metro league" model of concentrating on 9-a-side local footy between the national league fixtures.

Germany's first 9-a-side metro league was founded by the Munich Roos last year, with the squad divided into three teams and over 50 players playing a match in the Bayernliga over the course of the 2010 season. This year, the Rheinland Lions and Berlin Crocodiles are looking at starting their own metro competitions.

David Mudge from the Roos says "the Bayernliga was a huge success last year, generating a pile of new recruits to the sport. We thought about expanding to four teams but in the end will keep it to the established three, with the exception that if Nürnberg get a team together, or even half a dozen guys, they have a standing invitation to participate as the fourth team."

The AFL Britain have a new committee coordinating the regional English clubs north of London, with Karl Haigh from the Huddersfield Rams recently appointed president of the newly-formed AFL Britain North.

This committee includes all clubs from both the Central & North West and North East leagues, after the 2010 season saw the North East league struggle for numbers and come close to collapsing. New secretary of the AFL Britain North is Great Britain Bulldogs and England Dragonslayers rep Alistair Dellooze.

2011 will be a big year for English footy, with not only preparations for the Bulldogs' International Cup campaign, but also the European Legion vs AFL/AIS match in London, and the first London vs Country match scheduled to be held in Worksop.

LEFT: The Huddersfield Rams in 2010

Of the potential new sides at the 2011 International Cup, the newest to footy in general are the Swiss, with the newly-formed AFL Switzerland working hard to find enough sponsorship to make it to the tournament.

A few previous unsuccessful attempts to start teams in Lucerne and Geneva aside, footy has only been played in Switzerland since 2010, when the club in Lugano was created to compete in the inaugural AFL Italia premiership season. Team Switzerland, drawn from the Lugano squad, made its debut at the 2010 Euro Cup.

Switzerland's second club, to be based in the country's largest city Zurich, will hold its first training session at the end of February under the leadership of Jono Newman. Newman spoke to WFN about the national team's chances Down Under in August.

LEFT: Switzerland at the 2010 Euro Cup in Parabiago, Italy. Photo courtesy of Daniela Scalia.

The AFL Europe this week announced that the 2011 9-a-side Euro Cup has been awarded to the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland.

This will be the first time the cup has been held in Ireland, and the Australian Rules Football League of Ireland believe it will serve as something of a preview to the next full-field European Championships, to be held in Dublin in 2013.

The ARFLI, although a powerhouse of European footy, are relative newcomers to the Euro Cup, not sending an official side until 2010. Prior to this, the Irish Exiles, drawn from Irishmen playing in other leagues around Europe, competed at the 2009 tournament.

Formerly known as the EU Cup, the Euro Cup is the biggest annual event on the European footy calendar, and is the main opportunity to get a large section of the community together.

Readers can contact eurocup@afleurope.org for more details.