BBC Sport have a tremendous 30 minute documentary on the rise of Collingwood's Irish recruit Martin Clarke. The story looks at his junior days of Gaelic football through to his first successful season at the Pies (with coach Mick Malthouse hailing Marty's amazing achievements), and his end of year return home where he again donned his local colours as well as bringing some footy to his former school.

The video gives great insight into how much Clarke is already missed back home and what a talent he has for both sports. It also demonstrates the incredible array of resources Collingwood have to develop a young player - from top quality gym facilities to an altitude training room and video analysis of player body mechanics. Some Irish officials assure themselves that many "Irish experiments" will fail in Australia and return after a year or two. But the modern era of recruitment is very much different to when Jim Stynes was in the minority in making the transition back in the 1980s. The professional scouting and extra resources could well see the success rate become very high, and early indications are that it has happened already.

Unfortunately at time of writing there appears to be an audio synchronisation issue, but the documentary can be viewed here: Clarke Rules, OK!. Thanks to Aussie Rules Wales' Bryce Stone for the tip off.

We've also updated the International Players in Australia page with some photos of the earlier players, courtesy of the AFL.

The wave of recent Irish recruits to AFL clubs have begun arriving in Australia for pre-season training. Although mainstream Aussie media has been slow to pick up on the development of Australian Football internationally, because the men from Ireland are headed for AFL clubs there has been no shortage of articles.

Most of the players have been added to the International Rookie List for the respective clubs, meaning they are outside of the main squad lists, but can play for the clubs' feeder teams, such as in the VFL, and be called up to senior duty if a long term injury occurs.

The first-ever Dragon Cup between Aussie Rules UK's England and Wales representative sides was held last weekend in Cardiff, with the England Dragonslayers running out 5-goal winners over the Wales Red Dragons.

After the national anthems and a minute's silence for Welsh rugby legend Ray Gravell who died during the week, a hard-hitting match was underway with the Welshmen surprising the more experienced English team with their ferocity at the ball. Led by captain Jack Wells, the Welsh were well in the game until the Dragonslayers pulled away in the last quarter.

England's Mark Todd kicked five goals in a best-on-ground performance, with Daniel Morgan-Kane the best for the Red Dragons.

The Denmark Vikings played a practise match yesterday against the DAFL All-Stars, with the All-Stars featuring the best Australians from the Danish league - and a special guest in Brownlow medallist Jimmy Bartel. Despite the highest-profile ring-in ever in Danish footy, the All-Stars went down to the Vikings quite convincingly - the Vikings winning 9.11.65 to 2.7.19.

The match was held after the DAFL's AGM, which saw Ian Hill become the new president, Jens Alsted Hansen vice-president, Ingmar "Terry" Lundquist secretary and Erik Krolmark treasurer. The biggest change will be the expansion of the Premier League to 7 sides, with the Vikings sets to compete as a stand-alone team in preparation for the International Cup.

After considering the question of fielding a second Premier League team for a number of years, Farum have compromised by allowing the national team (made up of around 50% Farum players) to join for the coming season. The Cats will continue to be repesented by Farum's Australian players and their next crop of young Danish players not in the main Vikings squad. It is hoped that for 2009 and beyond, the second Farum team will continue to participate in DAFL in its own right.

Full scores and stats for the Vikings vs Allstars match available at the Footy Record.

Aussie Nathan Sawicki, a member of the Finland AFL, featured on the front page of The Saturday Age's employment section this weekend. We're pretty sure that's him in the Carlton jumper, we're guessing the man to his left sporting the Finland Icebreakers jumper is a local.

The article inside mainly talks about Sawicki's life as an expatriate Australian in Finland and the employment and study chances for Aussies in the Scandinavian nation - with a small mention of the growing Aussie Rules (and rugby and cricket) scene.

The profile of international footy has beefed up considerably in the past 12 months in the Melbourne media. While it still gets written off by a large percentage of the public, the "cultural cringe" seems to be fading a bit, helped along by growing realisation about things like the AFL South Africa programs and the Demons' China project.

If anyone from Finland wants to provide details on the exact identity of the player in the photo, feel free to leave a comment on this article!

The trickle of Irish players into the Australian Football League is set to become a flood in 2008. Carlton may be about to take the recruiting experiment to a new level, and what had been a curiosity could now become a major phenomenon, set to shape the on-field destinies of some clubs and possibly even bring on the possibility of true international Australian Football competition for Australia.

Geelong's brownlow medal-winning Jimmy Bartel pulled on the boots for the Halikko Juggernauts last weekend, helping Finland's second club to their first-ever win over the Helsinki Heatseekers.

Bartel pulled in at least one spectacular screamer and impressive goal - and was presented with the number 8 Finland jumper after the game. The Finland AFL now has around 40 playing members, with two active local clubs (Helsinki and Halikko) and hopefully two or three more ready to go soon. If all goes according to plan, the Finns (and the Swedes) will be in Melbourne next year for the IC 2008.

The full story and a shot of Bartel receiving the jumper is available on the AFL website here

The BARFL's British Bulldogs continued their domination of all that come before them this year with a massive 146-point win over the ARUK combined England and Wales Dragons. The game was played 14-a-side as the Dragons suffered some last-minute withdrawals, with the Bulldogs again showing the form that saw them hammer the Irish in Dublin running out 23.28.166 to 2.8.20 winners.

The Bulldogs are now looking forward to next year's International Cup, where they will have the chance to show how much they've really come against the heavyweights PNG, New Zealand and the US.

For the ARUK sides, the next hitout will be a match between the England Dragonslayers and Wales Red Dragons on November 3rd in Cardiff.

Australian Football in Europe has been relatively slow to develop. The United Kingdom has seen its fair share of the game over the last one hundred years, so it is no surprise a number of solid leagues have been established. Denmark then took to the game in the 1990s and has made slow by steady progress since, bringing in southern Sweden at the same time. Ireland were the obvious next choice to flex their footy muscle, but after them, there was a period where few leagues developed and a number of nations were stuck in the one-country-one-club situation.

There are signs this limitation is starting to be thrown off, and at the same time there are an increasing number of internationals being played. Clearly it's high time Europe was able to crown its own champion nation, but any undisputed mechanism to achieve that is far from settled.