The Zaprude Giants are the toast of Croatia after last weekend’s victory in the CEAFL (Central European Australian Football League) Championships held in Prague, Czech Republic. After having headed the table after victories in the first two rounds held in Croatia and Austria, something special was needed by their competitors to stop a Giants title – it didn’t happen.

 

 

Headed into the Prague leg of the tournament, only the Giants, Sesvete Blues from Croatia and the Styrian Downunderdogs from Austria had enough accumulated points from the previous events to be overall winners, but the Giants did little wrong as they again won the day and the overall title.

Paul Daffey of PDFooty interviews Julien Kann from the AFLG club the Munich Kangaroos.  The Roos stalwart grew up in Balywn and moved to Bavaria, where he’s now a premiership coach after leading his team to victory in the AFL Germany grand final.

The draws for the upcoming Euro Cup in Lisbon, Portugal on October 8th have been released by AFL Europe. The men’s draw features 15 national teams across four pools, whilst the women’s draw sees seven teams across two pools – 22 teams in all headed for Lisbon.

The men’s draws have been broken down as follows:



A: Croatia, Italy, Austria, Wales,
B: France, Ireland, Russia, Peace Team Lions
C: Germany, Norway, Scotland, Portugal
D: Netherlands, Crusaders, England

Once again history has been made in Danish football with relative newcomers, the Odense Lions, reaching the DAFL finals for the first time. As expected, there is one very excited and emotional football club on the island of Funen. For a city already well known as the birth place of children’s story teller, Hans Christian Andersen, the Lions (and their Lionesses) are hoping to bring another type of fame to the city.

“For the first time the Odense Lions have made it to the Danish Australian Football League’s finals. They will meet Copenhagen Barracudas in the semi-final, a hard opposition that has only lost one game all year. It is the Lions third season and the development has been slow but steady.”

The new season of French footy (CNFA) gets underway in a little over a month. It seems like yesterday that the Paris Cockatoos stunned the footy world by taking out the 2015/16 premiership in their debut season, and since then six other teams have been plotting how to pluck the Cockatoos.

But one team that will just be happy to enter the fields of battle is the brand new Blagnac Aviators club from Toulouse. Having been on the rise in the shadows of last season, the leagues newest entity is ready to roll and will hit their home field first round when they tackle the Bordeaux Bombers on October 15th. It will be an historic day for Blagnac, for the city of Toulouse and for the CNFA and French footy in general.

One of the last club based tournaments for 2016 will be held this coming weekend, Saturday 17th September, in Newcastle at the club’s new home in Gosforth. It is a chance for some clubs to have a last hitout before the start of the off-season and international representative competitions.

According to Tyne Tees Tigers president, Phil Martin, “The Tyne Cup is a pretty recent one day tournament held up here in the North East. Competing this year are the hosts, Tyne Tees Tigers who currently hold the trophy. The Glasgow Sharks who are the current AFL Scotland champions and the Kingdom Kangaroos who we have a long relationship with which has been cemented by competing for the annual pre-season ‘Bawbag Cup’”.

Alexey Andryushin from the St Petersburg Cats is a keen student of history, and is very aware of how important this weekend’s clash between the Lazy Koalas and the Cats was. “The weather was perfect: no rain and no hot sun either, and the day of this game matched the Moscow City day - today was the 869th anniversary of Moscow (est. 1147).”

The culmination of the first full season of competition between the two cities is certainly an historical event in European footy – maybe not on the same level of the history of the nation’s iconic capital city, but certainly of historical importance in the growth of the Australian national game across Europe.

Finals time has well and truly arrived across all Scandinavian countries. Finland and Norway have seen their finals decided whilst major leagues in both Sweden and Denmark have finished their home and away seasons and now prepare for the biggest matches of the season. Following is a brief overview of each competition to date.

 

 

Norway: After a dominant season, the Oslo East team has taken out the 2016 Kenguru Cup, downing cross town rivals, Oslo West.  The “Beast From The East” had dominated the season and few held out hope the West could produce a monumental upset, but in the end the script was followed to the letter as East played to their potential and took the 2016 crown. Final score was East 77 to West 6. The Ås Battlers finished the season in third place. 

It was a huge day of footy in Frankfurt as the AFLG Premiership (16 per side) and the AFLG Championship (9 per side) were decided. The biggest winners on the day were the Munich Kangaroos downing the Berlin Crocodiles in the premiership decider. The Hamburg Dockers downed the host team, the Frankfurt Redbacks, in the championship decider.

Munich leapt out to a handy 37 point lead by half time in the premiership decider – leading 62 to 25. Whilst they were the dominant side, the Crocs were still a mathematical chance of turning things around in the second half. But an even better second half from the Kangaroos – 77 to 2 – saw them power away to take the 2016 AFLG Premiership.

A new footy force is rumbling to life between Edinburgh and Glasgow. The new West Lothian Eagles are gathering the necessary interest and support to build a new Scottish powerhouse, and if enthusiasm counts for anything, Mikey Allan will make it happen.

In a recent chat with Mikey he revealed, “I had moved to West Lothian last October and decided to try and start a training group. I was asked if there was a team and I said there wasn't which resulted in only 1 guy showing up to training. [But] the team is currently seven weeks old and we are attracting more every week - nine at our last session.”