After trialling with the Carlton Football Club last year, Ciaran Byrne was back at Princes Park again in the past couple of weeks and has been confirmed as the latest Irish import to the AFL. Byrne will be officially taken in the AFL's national draft later this year as an International Rookie.

Following the last two notable failures in John Heslin and Ciaran Kilkenny at Richmond and Hawthorn respectively to make it past preseason, clubs may have become understandably shy of bringing out young homesick Gaelic footballers.

The first day's play at the DCU Sportground in Dublin has been completed, with Ireland, Great Britain and Croatia winning their respective matches.

A wrap-up of Day 1's matches with best players and goal kickers is available on the dublin2013.org tournament website here. The tournament organisers have also posted a highlights video, available for viewing here.

The AFL Europe Championships kick off in Dublin tomorrow, with Europe's six strongest footballing nations battling it out for the cup. Hosts Ireland will again go into the tournament as hot favourites, although with healthy competition from arch rivals Great Britain, Scandinavian powerhouses Denmark and Sweden, and the relative underdogs Croatia and Germany.

The round one pool matches of Ireland vs Sweden and Great Britain vs Denmark will go a long way towards deciding who will meet in the final, with a large advantage to the winners in those matches.

Fans will be able to check up on the full draw, squads and live results via the tournament website dublin2013.org, with scores also to appear here after each round, along with resultant changes in the WFN World Rankings.

Peter Ross from the Irish Warriors has also published a form guide on his blog, which is available here.

On the 17th of July, the leading women involved in football in Europe (outside of Ireland) got together via tele-conferencing to discuss this year’s Axios Euro Cup, which will be held in Bordeaux on the 21st of September.

For the last few years, Ireland has managed to a field a team, and another country (or a collaboration of countries, such as last year’s European Crusaders) has also put a team in to play them in a women’s exhibition match. However, with the women’s game finally beginning to grow outside of Ireland, it might finally be possible to have a genuine women’s competition alongside the men’s competition at this year’s Euro Cup.

As this year’s Euro Cup will be hosted in France, and with a number of female players in Bordeaux, Paris and Toulouse, AFL France’s Women’s Football Co-ordinator, Berengere Portal, has confirmed that the French aim to put out a home side.

In our previous story An Avalanche of Austrian Talent about the rebuilding of Australian Rules football in Austria, Oliver Krajacic painted a picture of a re-birth of sorts, due mainly to hard work and a connection to the Karl-Franzens Universität Graz.

That was on the back of a hectic off-season which saw structural and planning changes for Austrian footy, but was also rather theory-based. The measure of success would be tangible progress and change for the better as the 2013 season wore on.

At this point, Oliver can fill in the blanks.

“Our president Martin Schittegg had come up with the idea of holding an Austrian championship of sorts after we picked up some new players throughout the course of the year. By adding some retired veterans, some interested newcomers and our new additions to the team, we managed to put together the Murtal Mountain Goats, Gradec Earthmovers and Castle Rock Mammoths.”

The following article, written by David Stone for the Oslo Crows website, details the recently played second round of the Kenguru Cup. The third round will be played shortly, on 1st August, again at the Storebrand Stadion. Out thanks to the crew in Norway for the article, and we wish them well as they develop their players ahead of the upcoming Euro Cup.

The UMBI Ås Battlers have shot to the top of the Kenguru Cup table after two emphatic wins in the second round of the Kenguru Cup. The Battlers sit one game clear on top of the ladder after putting both Oslo East and Oslo West to the sword at Storebrand Stadion.

Heavy rain the day before the matches didn’t disturb the playing surface. In fact the rain took the hardness out of the ground, creating perfect conditions for Australsk Fotball.

Cristiano Colizzi, Communications & Media Manager at the Roma Football Club, was justifiably excited when chatting about the 2013 season. His beloved Roma team had just won their second premiership in the four year history of the competition in Italy, so when the nuggetty Blue’s back pocket was asked to tell a little more he decided to start…at the beginning.

“AFL Italia was born in 2009 thanks to Nicola Giampaolo and Armando Colombo, who started training some guys for a national (Italy) team. At the 2009 Euro Cup in Zagreb (Samobor), they placed 13th overall.”

“Then, with Luca Tramontin, they started to involve some guys near Milan and Lugano (Switzerland). Meanwhile Marco Musella [made] contact with them and started building a team in Rome. On December 12th 2009, Marco founded the Roma Football Club (RFC), choosing colours and logo of the Carlton Football Club from Down Under.”

“In 2010 [we] started the first Italian premiership with the Milano Footy Club, Roma Football Club, Genova Dockers and the Lugano Bankers.”