The love of the game in Russia is slowly growing, largely through the efforts of late of two of their newest clubs – the Saint Petersburg Cats and the Lazy Koalas in Moscow. After many years of work by Roger Scott and his crew to get a foothold in Moscow, a new breed has grabbed the game by the throat and is lovingly steering it to bigger and better places.

Whilst the national team has yet to reappear at the Euro Cup since their debut international appearance in 2011, the game is far from finished in Russia. During this season the teams from Moscow and St Petersburg have found the resources to compete on a reasonably regular basis – considering distance, opportunity and personnel need to be available at the same time every time to make an event happen.

Alexey Andryushin from the Saint Petersburg Cats, one of the new clubs in the nation, forming in 2014, was happy to give an overview of the 2015 season in Russia – especially from the viewpoint of the Cats as they continue thee long road to stability and success.

The AFLCNE will welcome a new team to their playing fields for the 2016 in a move which will bring the competition back to eight teams and bring the city of Liverpool back into the Australian Rules football scene.

The recent AGM for the league saw a unanimous decision to allow the fledgling Merseyside Saints to take their place in the competition next year. A message from the AFLCNE on their Twitter account said “following today's AGM it gives us great pleasure to welcome [the] Merseyside Saints into the AFLCNE. See you on the field!”

Will Sykes is co-founder of the club and club president. In a short interview, Will laid out the situation for the club in terms of how people feel about the decision. He also looked at the demographics of this newest team from a Liverpool base and what will ensure future longer term success.

Each year at the AFL Europe Axios Euro Cup one team seems to have its moment in the sun – a year where they reach a new height which surprises some but thrills many. In 2014, Wales finished fifth when they surprised England in their playoff. In 2013 the story was host nation France reaching the final. Norway had the European footy world talking when they won the Euro Plate in their debut year.

The “feel good” story from the 2015 event in Umag, Croatia, could well be Austria. Their seventh placing overall was their best performance ever at a Euro Cup. Michael Jud, captain of the Austrian Avalanche national team has been through the lows in the past, but was delighted to talk about this high.

“Before the Euro Cup we didn't know how to feel about it, because our year was not the best one when it comes to training and games because we had to cancel a lot of sessions due to heavy rain. Furthermore, quite a lot people were almost fully booked with working, studying and becoming fathers.”

The 2015 Euro Cup is now but a memory and the players, officials, supporters and families have started the journeys home. In another year from now we will start again, somewhere. But now we have a chance to look at how each nation performed at the event.

 

Denmark:

As close to faultless as a team could get. Won their Pool B matches against Austria and the Peace team by huge margins, then mauled the host team, Croatia, in the semi-final stage. Gave England a decent headstart in the final before powering home and away by 21 points. Little more could have gone right to make this two years of Danish dominance.

 

The women’s team fell only at the final hurdle, proving too good for Norway, Croatia and France, However, they went down heavily in the final to England suggesting a gulf between their own best and the best women in Europe.

 

The Danish men’s footy team has etched themselves into the history books by becoming just the third team to win back to back titles after England (2008/09) and Ireland (2011/12). The Danes were terrific in taking out the title in Umag. The women’s title was taken by the England Vixens, defeating the Danish girls in their final.

 

In a tough final, heavily effected by strong winds, the England team raced to an early lead before the Denmark team charged back into the game, eventually running out comfortable winners by 21 points.

 

 

Host nation Croatia held on in a thriller against Ireland for the third place battle. Germany finished in fifth place, taking out the Euro Bowl by defeating the team from France in another thriller by just three points. The Netherlands defeated the European Crusaders in the battle for ninth place to be the winners of the Euro Plate.

The Sydney Swans tonight announced they have signed Irishman Colin O’Riordan as an International Category B rookie.

O’Riordan, who turns 20 next week, is an exciting prospect who hails from Irish county Tipperary.

The 187cm talented junior was recently named Gaelic football’s young player of the year and he’s also an All-Ireland minor winner in both hurling and football and has twice earned All-Ireland honours.

Irishman Tadhg Kennelly is a favourite son of the club in modern times and along the way they have also had Brendan Murphy, Chris McKaigue and Tommy Walsh come to the club from the Emerald Isle.

Kennelly oversaw the talent combine in Ireland late last year that was the first step in getting O'Riordan into the AFL system, but all clubs have the chance to both be at the combine here as well as see O'Riordan at the combine in Melbourne.  With Internationals the draft does not come into play in terms of who gets to sign them, it is first to sign them can then officially take them in the national draft.

 

As the AFL season in Australia moves into the trade and pre-draft stages, two more young Irish prospects have announced themselves at the current  NAB AFL Draft Combine. At the end of last season AFL clubs willingly added Irish talent to their 2015 lists with Conor McKenna going to Essendon, Sean Hurley to Fremantle, Padraig Lucey to Geelong, Cian Hanley to Brisbane and Paddy Brophy to West Coast.

 

Whilst the North American experiment is in a state of limbo with Eric Wallace being delisted by North Melbourne and the possibility of Mike Pyke retiring, the Irish contingent continues to blossom. The following article from www.afl.com.au introduces the progress of two more Irish candidates.

 

 

IRISH prospects Darragh Joyce and Colin O'Riordan have created plenty of interest at the NAB AFL Draft Combine, with the teenagers considered strong chances to earn international rookie contracts

The reality is that the best prepared and performed team on any given day, at any given event, will take home the titles. The talent and determination in the team list will go a long way to deciding events as will the collective desire to focus for the sustained periods required and get the job done.

But can past performance be used as a guide to how the teams will go at this year’s Euro Cup in Umag, Croatia. This is far from an exacting science, but it does make an interesting exercise to see what journeys each nation has been on in the preceding years.

Following is a team by team analysis of past performance as a guide to how they might perform at this year’s Euro Cup.

Copenhagen Australian Football tell us "there is a lot of effort put in the video (below) and we believe it does a good job of representing footy in Europe and in Copenhagen." We agree, encourage you to watch and enjoy.

 [youtube:vI7uRtiBvkE]

With the Axios Euro Cup for 2015 now just days away interest is turning to the teams that will compete this year. Whilst there is much excitement over how the host team, Croatia, will go, whether or not Denmark can defend its title or whether the Irish or English teams will bounce back, one team which has fostered much interest is the Peace Team.

Simon Fink has been working to put together this team and is one of the people responsible for seeing the team materialise at this year’s event.

According to Simon, “The current Peace Team is comprised of Israeli's and Palestinians living in and around Jerusalem. The composition is 50/50. We have Muslims, Jews and Christians playing together.”