With the home and away season behind us, all sorts of AFL awards are being announced.  One award growing in stature in recent years is the 2013 Be the Influence AFL Players’ MVP Awards. 

The nominations have been finalised and Irishman Pearce Hanley has been included in the top 54 (see below).  Hanley was one of the omissions from this week’s announcement of the 40 players eligible to be selected in the final 22 of the 2013 Four'N Twenty AFL All Australian Team. 

The winner of the AFL industry’s foremost peer-determined award, the Leigh Matthews Trophy proudly presented by Be the Influence, will be announced on Tuesday September 10 at Peninsula, Docklands in Melbourne.

Setanta O'hAilpin was today delisted by the GWS Giants. He played seven games for the Giants for a career total of 88 games after joining the club from Carlton for the 2012 season. He has kicked 82 career goals.

Injury robbed O'hAilpin of a chance to cement himself as a key forward at the Giants after his career at Carlton ended in 2011 after being used by the Blues in numerous positions with varying success.

We will be interested to see where O'hAilpin goes from here, he might be a great IC14 ambassador given his Irish and Fijian (winners of IC11 Division 1 and 2 respectively) heritage. The Irish Warriors might rather see him lining up on the field for them though.

In the next instalment of our preview series on teams appearing at the 2013 Axios Euro Cup, we check in with the Finland Icebreakers. Assistant Coach from the national team, Mika Kupila, shared some information with us regarding the Icebreakers' preparations for the 2013 Euro Cup.

The Journey:

"Footy in Finland has been improving a lot since last year with skills improving on wide scale. We had a much larger pool of players to choose from for the trip to France, the team is a good combination of experience as well as first timers. We are definitely looking to improve our placing from last year."

"We still only have 4 clubs (Helsinki, Salo, Turku and Vaasa) but almost all teams have grown in numbers and seen a lot of new players experience the game. Turku Dockers have grown especially much and almost have enough players to for two teams. Salo Juggernauts on the other hand have been struggling somewhat with most of the team doing their mandatory military service."

"The annual, season starting FAFL Cup was played in Lappeenranta in Eastern Finland and the traditional finals event will be played in Tampere. Neither of these cities have an active footy scene yet, so the events work well in promoting the sport."

Here is the latest wrap up of football in Norway with a report about the fourth round of the Kenguru Cup. A huge final round has now been assured as the 2013 winner will be decided. Our thanks to the team at AFL Norway for this article. 

  A pulsating fourth round of the 2013 Kenguru Cup at Ekeberg saw each team walk away with a win, setting up a huge final round to decide the cup. 

The sun was shining at Ekeberg, on yet another perfect day for football. Oslo West, the league’s cellar dwellers, came into round four needing to win both games to be a mathematical chance of winning the title, and faced the UMBI Ås Battlers in Game One. 

The Battlers sported several exciting new players to cover the absence of some experienced faces, and predictably, it took them some time to adjust to the game. West pushed forward regularly, but as has been their trademark, failed to capitalize on their ascendency. A late goal to Ås made scores almost level at the half. 

In the second half, Ås’s young runners pushed forward repeatedly, daring their opponents to go with them. West didn’t have the fitness to keep up, and with Adam O’Toole intercepting and rebounding most of West’s long kicks into the forward line, West were out of answers. Ås comfortably outscored the Westsiders in the second half, running away 5.4 (34) to 2.6 (18).

In the next of our series of articles looking at the preparation and prospects of the various nations competing at this year’s Axios Euro Cup in Bordeaux, we look at the story of the Norway Trolls. David Stone, General Manager of AFL Norway, gives us his insights.

The Journey:

“The game is growing, and improving. The Australians in Norway are getting good at working with the newer Norwegian players and getting them up to speed, but as with every country, we're always looking for more players.”

“The Ås team continues to attract good Norwegian talent due to their connection with the university out there. We've uncovered some good local players here in Oslo too, but we have to work a little harder to find them. We've just done a deal with Oslo's biggest gym to play indoors during winter - with the gym's members invited to learn and join in - so that should gain us a few good new players.”

"In terms of expansion, a few guys have started kicking the ball around in Bergen, which may turn into something, and one of our key Oslo players has just relocated. We'll be working on him to set up a team in his new city.

In the second of our series of articles looking at the preparation and prospects of the various nations competing at this year’s Axios Euro Cup in Bordeaux, we look at the story of the Iceland Ravens. Solvi Fannar, General Manager of AFL Iceland, gives us his insights.

The Journey:

“In September 2012 [we] went with the rest of the boys in the national team to Edinburgh for the Euro Cup. “As for the team we will almost certainly have for this year’s Euro Cup, we will also have a couple of the girls join us, so there will likely be some Icelandic players in the Crusaders squad.”

In the first of a series of articles looking at the preparation and prospects of the various nations competing at this year’s Axios Euro Cup in Bordeaux, we look at the story of the Croatian Knights. Josip Kravar, president of the Association of Australian Football of Croatia (AAF), gives us his insights.

 The Journey:

“Players trained with their clubs until the beginning of June when they joined the Knights squad and 4 times a week preparation began. [Our] main focus for this year was development for a 16 per side team at the European Championship and we are satisfied with our work with young talent and our result at the European Championship. We were placed 11th on the world footy ranking, and what I can say is that we will justify that in future competitions.”

“[There were some] new players that emerged from our collaboration with Zagreb Sports Faculty and Zagreb University. [Along with] a couple of veterans and other well-known names in AFL Europe, this will be team that will go only for a gold medal at this Euro Cup.”

Sweden's newest team, the Lödde Chiefs, played their first game last night against the famously technicolour Landskrona Bulldozers.

Amazingly, the team was only founded on Thursday. They fielded fifteen players for the match at Brohult IP in Helsingborg, with eight of those having not even seen a game before. Two of their other players were retired ex-Helsingborg Saints, who had only played a handful of games between them.

The Landskrona Bulldozers were also represented by one of South Sweden's women players Kerstin Lövendahl, who reportedly took and dished out the hard tackles very well and wonders if their is any law in DAFL that would prevent her playing in the Premier League.

The Lödde Chiefs are from the small town of Löddeköping, and have chosen their official colours as blue, green and white. If all goes according to plan, the Chiefs will field a side in the AFL Sweden South next year.

Scores from the friendly match are available here.

The 2013 Axios Euro Cup will be held in Saint-Médard-en-Jalles close to Bordeaux, the fifth biggest city in France. The organization is managed by the local team, Bordeaux Bombers, in close cooperation with the Comité National de Football Australien (the French Federation) and AFL Europe.

On the 21st September 2013, hundreds of European players (and volunteers) will compete in a warm and friendly atmosphere. This challenge is a real opportunity for the development of the Australian football in France.

This year, the French League has seen the victory of Toulouse Hawks in the Super League and Montpellier Sharks in the Development League. Nevertheless, following a considerable number of withdrawals caused by injuries and limited games the Comité National de Football Australien has decided to unify the two leagues.

15 year old French exchange student Leopold Khalfi has received some local media attention after pulling on the navy blue jumper of Coolaroo in the AFL Darling Downs, a country Queensland league based around the city of Toowoomba.

Paris native Khalfi has played two matches for the Roos since coming to Toowoomba seven weeks ago, with Coolaroo winning both.

He has also found the French footy clubs - hopefully he will have a chance to run out with the Paris Cockerels or Cergy Coyotes sometime in the future.

The article on Khalfi can be found in Toowoomba local newspaper The Chronicle via French Exchange Student kicks New Goal.