The Australian Rules Football League of Ireland is looking forward to an exciting 2008, with the creation of two new clubs on the west coast in County Mayo and County Kerry.

Denis Kennelly, a cousin of Sydney star Tadhg, has organised the first training session for the Kerry Kangaroos for December 28th. A number of Denis' former clubmates from the Leeside Lions will be on hand to assist, as will Dublin Demons President John Enright, himself a Kerry native.

A big bonus though will be the presence of Swans star Tadhg, who will assist his cousin in organising the session and ensure media interest locally. The Kerry club has been an ambition of Denis' for some years now and having recently moved home from Cork he decided it was time to put his plan into effect. Kerry has long been the pre-eminent county in Gaelic Football and this should ensure that any recruits should make for a very competitive team.

Meanwhile, further north on the western seaboard, the Mayo Mariners have begun life online. The club have set up a website in order to attract recruits in the county which recently lost Pierce Hanley to the Brisbane Lions. The club's website can be found at www.mayomariners.com and they are hopeful that some favourable media attention will draw interest from those interested in playing in Mayo and the Surrounding Sligo and North Roscommon catchments.

Footy is coming to France's Atlantic coast with the creation of the Bordeaux Bombers. The Bombers bring the number of clubs in France to three, joining the Strasbourg Kangaroos and the Paris Cockerels.

The Bombardiers de Bordeaux had their first run on Saturday November 3rd, with plans to send players to a planned France-Germany match scheduled for March 15 next year in Strasbourg. They are then hoping to have their first against outside competition when they host Barcelona in April, followed by a triangular tournament between the French clubs later in July.

Clubs have come and gone in France, with the St Esteve Saints in Perpignan and clubs in the towns of Cergy and Senlis near Paris being launched a few years back only to disappear again. With people interested in starting new clubs around the country, hopefully the current crop can build towards some new growth in the French footy scene.

At the past two International Cups, the Irish national side wore a green jumper, recognising both the players' Irish nationality (harp) and football's Australian origin (Southern Cross). The Australian Rules Football League of Ireland (ARFLI) has decided that the team will wear a different design at next year’s Cup however, and has called for public input on this design. Everyone is welcome to submit their proposed jumper, with the best submissions to appear on the ARFLI website. The public will then be asked to vote for their favourite home and away versions, with the most popular to be adopted by the Warriors. Submissions close on January 18 2008 and should be sent to jenright at interactiveservices.com

Winning designers will be presented with the jumper they designed, signed by the team and framed for posterity.

More information is available from the ARFLI website.

The Chippenham Redbacks are the newest team up and running in British footy, with England Dragonslayers captain Rob Fielder helping to found the club over the past few months. Chippenham is a town of around 30,000 inhabitants located within about 30km of both Swindon and Bristol, with many of the Swindon Devils originally recruited by Fielder from this area - including six Dragonslayers representatives and the vice-captain of the Welsh Red Dragons.

After meetings held recently in London, the British Australian Rules Football League looks set to re-structure and re-badge. Current plans would see a shift towards a national umbrella organisation, probably to be called AFL Britain. To provide a more defined structure, the London leagues will play under an organising body called AFL London, directly responsible for the Premiership, Conference and Social Leagues.

It should also consolidate recent improvements to their working relationship with Aussie Rules UK, which has seen collaboration between the GB Bulldogs and England Dragonslayers as well as Aussie Rules UK providing opportunities for London clubs to play their juniors in a new under 16s league.

The Sydney Swans' first GAA recruit, Tadhg Kennelly, has spoken of his mixed feelings regarding the recruitment of other Irish players to the AFL. Although he is keen to encourage players that have undertaken the journey, he also says the idea that Gaelic football back home may be adversely affected "doesn't sit too pretty with me. The last thing I want to do is to see the GAA, or the game itself, suffer". He also spoke glowingly of the Swans' latest recruit, and didn't rule out there being 20 to 30 Irish players in the AFL within just two or three years. In fact Sydney may have their eyes set on another player already.

The Swedish Elks held a national team training camp in Jönköping last weekend as the start of preparations for their planned International Cup debut in 2008. Thirty Swedish players and two coaches took part, with another ten players under consideration but unable to attend.

Swedish AFL president Jimmy Ljunggren is rating Sweden very likely to make the trip down under. As he explains, "We had representativies from Gothenburg, Stockholm, Falun, Karlstad, Landskrona and Malmö. We are planning to orginize another camp in April, a club-cup event in May, an international game in June (most likely Finland) and one in July (hopefully against Denmark)."

The session was organized by Swedish footy veteran Andreas Svensson and coached by Australians Ryan Kingsley and Cameron Crooks. Ljunggren tells us Svensson is currently the frontrunner for the job as captain as the most experienced campaigner and the only Swede to have played in the IC so far, representing Denmark in 2002.

The West London Wildcats will be the first BARFL club to launch a regular-season juniors team next year, with the Wildcats planning to enter an under-16s team in a new London junior league organised by Aussie Rules UK.

As it stands, the Wildcats will be joined by five school teams from around the London area, with the league to be played under full-contact rules with boys in the age range of 14-16, first bounce to be April next year. The Wildcats' main source of junior talent is via Featherstone High School in Ealing, who are connected with another 30 primary and 16 secondary schools in the area who are interested in running pograms.

Although no other BARFL clubs have entered a team so far, Wildcats stalwart Matt Glynn explains that the plan for the first season may see some of the schools being aligned with other BARFL clubs, with a view to them entering their own teams in future.

The British Bulldogs have shown themselves to be greatly improved and are widely tipped to be a force at the upcoming International Cup, however most clubs still find recruiting of local players a challenge. With pathways for junior talent to develop, the next few years may see British footy take a sizeable leap forward.

AFL clubs have now lodged their final player lists prior to the main National Draft on Saturday November 24. As expected, several of the recent Gaelic football recruits from Ireland have been added to official Rookie Lists, which locks the players in with their respective clubs for up to two years and allows them to be elevated to the senior list should there be a long term injury.

Rookie listed were County Mayo's Pearce Hanley (Brisbane Lions), County Armagh's Kevin Dyas (Collingwood) and County Carlow's Brendan Murphy (Sydney).

As reported earlier, Aisake O'hAilpin joins his brother Setanta on Carlton's senior list, and Martin Clarke stays on Collingwood's books having been temporarily promoted last season when a fellow Pie went down with injury.

Remaining on St Kilda's Rookie List for a second year is South African born Luke van Rheenen.

The following article is courtesy of ARFLI's Public Relations Officer, Danny Persse:

On a clear Autumn Saturday the 20th of October 2007 the Dublin Saints unveiled their new residence An Cumaan Parnell by Dublin Airport with an off season scratch fixture against 2007 ARFLI premiership runners-up the South Dublin Swans.

Both teams lined out numbering many of Ireland’s international players recently returned from triumph in Denmark with Roger Clarke the Irish international coach donning a Saints guernsey.