The Paris Cockatoos and Toulouse Hawks have enjoyed a big weekend with important victories over their opponents. The Cockerels travelled to Lyon to down the reigning premiers, the ALFA Lions, whilst the Toulouse Hawks were too good for the Bordeaux Bombers at home.

The ALFA Lions have learned quickly what it means to go from the hunter to the hunted. After winning last season’s flag and displaying good form in the pre-season, the Lions have lost both of their opening premiership matches. Losses to both the Cockatoos and the revitalised Toulouse Hawks I the opening round have made the season much harder for the Lions – from here it has to be as close to five wins from five starts as possible to challenge again for back to back honours. A tough task.

Results in the French (CNFA) Australian Rules football competition this weekend have seen the Toulouse based Aviators (formerly Blagnac Aviators) and Paris Cockerels record victories. They are important results for each team, setting the clubs up with a jump on other teams early in the season. The Aviators defeated the Tigers whilst the Cockerels downed the Coyotes.

The Perpignan Tigers hosted the Aviators and both teams fought hard throughout the match. The Aviators, in just their second season, played the brand of football that won them two matches in their maiden season. The Tigers were unlucky in some games last year and one could argue the same on the weekend. They fought the Aviators to the final siren but unluckily went down by three goals.

Round One of the French CNFA season is done. The round was a huge win for both the Bordeaux Bombers last weekend and the Toulouse Hawks yesterday. Both came away with important and resounding wins – but the Toulouse victory against the reigning premiers ALFA Lions signals the return of the Hawks.

Toulouse hosted the ALFA Lions and made no secret of their desire to capitalise on home ground advantage to outplay the Lions. By quarter time the Hawks had jumped to a 19-point lead and had extended that to a five goal break by half time.

Any chance of a second half revival by the Lions was snuffed out by another big third quarter by the Hawks, going into the final quarter with a 49-point lead. The final quarter saw the Lions fight for redemtion – the Hawks for total dominance, which is how the result panned out as they ran out convincing 66-point winners. Final score saw Toulouse Hawks 116 d ALFA Lions 50.

 

The following article from the Irish Independent looks at the drafting of superstar women’s Gaelic footballer Cora Staunton by AFLW club the Greater Western Sydney Giants. Cora was taken with pick 45 in yesterday’s AFLW NAB AFL Women’s Draft. Not only is Cora’s selection a great personal success, it also opens wider the prospects of more Irish and other international players seeking to be drafted in coming years.

Mayo star Cora Staunton will feature in the AFLW in 2018.

She will be the first international athlete to be drafted to play in the league which gets underway in January after she joined the Greater Western Sydney Giants.

Drive across Russia. Go on, I dare you! Its size is almost incomprehensible. Suggest you pack a sandwich. It is the largest country in the world and according to Wikipedia it covers one eighth of the habitable land mass of the earth. It cover over 17 million square kilometres. If this doesn’t yet have your attention as to its staggering size, try this. To travel from, say, St Petersburg in the west to Vladivostok in the east is not much short of 10 000 kilometres. Recommend you leave early.

The nation is almost too enormous to describe. Yet, if we change the context to Australian Rules football, they are but a mere minnow in the footy pond. Many footy nations are still described as being in their infancy. Russian footy is still in the crib.

That is what makes last weekend’s first Euro Cup win since 2011 for the Russian Czars so wonderful. A team representing a microscopic level of interest within a nation has just planted the seed for something bigger to grow. One win might not be seen as a big deal, but to those who have been developing the game in Russia that win was the equivalent of crossing the Himalayas.

The tables have finally turned in European Australian Football with both the men's and women's England teams not only claiming but dominating the Euro Cup 2017.

The most pleasing thing about both squads is that there were a number of debutants, players who have never pulled on the England guernsey before. Ruckwoman Allanah Blount's involvement in IC17 had a huge impact on her development despite the 23 year old only picking up the Sherrin in March this year.
 

English fans will have partied well into the night in Bordeaux after the nation took out the prestigious Euro Cup titles for both the men’s and women’s competitions. It will be remembered as a landmark day for English Australian Rules football as the years of hard work behind the scenes and on the training tracks resulted in a memorable result for the nation.

A moment should be set aside for Irish teams, both the men’s Warriors and women’s Banshees going down in the finals to the England teams. They Irish were brave, but the results in each final showed the English a long way ahead on the scoreboards, suggesting luck had little to do with results.

Whilst the victors quite rightfully will enjoy their tournament and take away fond memories, some of the lesser lights also stood out in a tournament, which continued to bring great opportunity to participating nations.

 

“Lions, Lions Everywhere - to Lyon one and all

To have a kick and have some fun and chase that ol’ football.”

Such was the theme of last weekend’s Lions Cup – the inaugural football tournament put together by the ALFA Lions in Lyon France. The event brought together Lions teams from France, Germany, Denmark and England to compete for the honour of being the greatest Lions in Europe.

The format was a six-match round robin draw, pitting each team against each other once. After the six completed matches, the results saw a three-way tie on wins at the top. The North London Lions, Odense Lions and ALFA Lions recorded two wins each – the title being decided by for and against.

As the AFL world turns its attention to tomorrow’s AFL Grand Final at the MCG between the Adelaide Crows and Richmond Tigers, Most of the European leagues have had their seasons decided in recent weeks. Following is a brief rundown of results for 2017.

As previous reported, the Manchester Mozzies won the AFLCNE premiership this year against the Nottingham Scorpions (see: The Mozzie Blueprint – Four Flags In a Row) and the Greater Glasgow Giants took out the SARFL flag in Scotland (see: One Giant Leap For Scottish Footy).

In Ireland, the Leeside Lions took out the ARFLI premiership, downing the South Dublin Swans (see: Leeside Lions Defend Title – 2017 ARFLI Premiers), whilst in Germany it was the Berlin Crocodiles winning the AFLG flag (see: Historic Crocs Complete German Fairy Tale).

The ALFA Lions started their 2017/18 premiership defence in fine style in Paris last weekend at the Coupe de France. Whilst having admitted before the tournament that the main aim of the event was friendship and the creation of an enjoyable atmosphere to start the new season, it will not be lost on them – or any other team – that the Lions are back again.

Going into the pool matches the Lions started with a 32 to 16 win over the Toulouse Hawks followed by a second pool win against the Bordeaux Bombers 43 to 20.

In their semi-final against the Cergy-Pontoise Coyotes, the Lions put the foot down and ran off with a strong 40-14 victory. This set up their final against the Paris Cockerels. After a strong game of defences, it was the Lyon based team that took the honours, running out winners over the Cockerels 28 to 11.