As the new Australian Rules season dawns for most European countries, various hibernating footballing leviathans emerge from their winter slumbers. One such region is the Iberian Peninsula where footy lovers in Spain, Portugal, Catalonia and Andorra prepare for the 2013 season.

The love of the game has not necessarily translated to large numbers in these countries, nations and principalities, meaning that regular fixtures are difficult. But that hasn’t stopped the intrepid few from generating interest to keep the code’s flag flying.

A group of German soccer students from Bamberg University recently took on the Tattersalls Football Club in Sydney in a match of AFL 9s - with the Germans' superior fitness allowing them to run out victors over the locals.

Bamberg is in the north of the German state of Bavaria, and while it's not particularly close to any existing AFLG clubs, the idea of some new enthusiastic footy fans in Germany might be of interest to the German footy community!

The following report originally appeared on the AFL NSW/ACT website.

Roger Scott, president of AFL Russia, is confident that the nation’s Australian Rules football ambitions will once again be on the rise in 2013. Just as soon as the current European winter releases its icy grip. In a story being played out across the continent, snow and ice are making footy practice a little problematic.

"The new season kicked off on Friday, March 8th with a practice match in the snow. The first official training should be this Sunday, but we’ve had one of the snowiest winters in history, and it doesn’t look like melting any time soon, so we could be delayed," explains Roger.

Whilst this scenario might suggest a slow start to the year, Roger is confident that things will pick up from here. “I’m helping organize the festival of Australian Culture in Moscow for July this year. It’ll be the first time such an event has been put on here. It should be a huge occasion."

"We’re hoping to play a practice match against a European or any foreign team as one of the main events for the festival, so we’re trying to find a team, whether it be local European, European representative or whoever, who’s ready to come! We’re also going to be running demonstrations, selling merchandise and showing games there." Now, there’s an invitation for someone to run with!

For the average footy follower, like me, Andorra is not a place that is frequently visited.  But a quick wander through an internet image search will unearth an incredible array of pictures which show this principality to be among the most beautiful places in the world.

The sixth smallest nation in Europe, Andorra is bordered by Spain and France in the Pyrenees Mountains. More importantly to readers is the prediction by Douglas Pate that Andorran Aussie Rules will be back in 2013 with a number of goals in mind…and not just six pointers.

Douglas Pate is already well known in international Australian Rules football circles for his work in developing Andorran footy, as well as footy in Catalonia in Spain. He is also a past president of the Danish Australian Football League back in 1995. Douglas admits that Andorra’s hiatus from the international scene in recent times coincides with his own pursuit of personal priorities. But he says “this year we [will] reactivate with the goal to go to the European Championships in Bordeaux”.

The Brisbane Lions tonight won the AFL's preseason competition the NAB Cup Grand Final at Etihad Stadium by 40 points.

Brisbane jumped the Carlton line-up that was heralded by broadcaster Channel 7 as being chock a block full of top draft picks over a number of seasons.

But from the first quarter it was the Lions who had Pearce Hanley racking up ten possessions running off the half back line and along with Zorko, Rich and Karnezis allowed the Lions to get out to an 12 point lead at quarter time. Hanley of course came to the Lions as an International Rookie and although he has been a long time in the making he outshone all those top draft picks at Carlton.

Hanley's form tonight followed up on his improving form in the last two years at Brisbane (where he has finished in the Lion's top 4 in the club best and fairest).

Last weekend a footy match was played under grey skies in Cork, Ireland. The event featured the Leeside Lions. That was nothing new or unexpected, though very welcome. It also, however, featured the UCC Bombers. That was something new…and a breath of fresh air for Australian Rules football as another new club took to the international stage.

The game marked the first ever match for the newest team on the Irish landscape, and no matter how it is viewed, the day was a success for the UCC crew.

Leeside Lions won the day on the scoreboard with the final score being 10.16 (76) to UCC Bombers 4.5 (29). But in every other way UCC just racked up victory after victory. Every box ticked in the lead up to the game culminated in the ultimate win when the team ran on to the field.

AFL Europe have announced that Axios Systems have signed on for 3 years as the naming rights sponsor of the Euro Cup, with the upcoming edition in Bordeaux now officially known as the 2013 Axios Euro Cup.

Axios Systems delivers on-premise and SaaS Service Desk and IT Service Management (ITSM) software to customers across the globe. They combine software, consulting and training to implement ITSM strategies tailored to meet the needs of their customers.

The AFL Europe encourage any company needing such services to get in touch with Axios via axiossystems.com and support a company that supports Australian Rules Football in Europe.

They would also like to publicly thank Andros Symeonides (Senior VP Business Development) and Ranald Haig who both recently played for Iceland in the 2012 Euro Cup and have been instrumental in securing this support for the development Australian Football in Europe.

The official logo for the 2013 Axios Euro Cup is shown at left, designed by European footy stalwart Kolja Koracak from Croatia and his company Locker Room 51 Sports Branding Studio. His work can be found at lockerroom51.com.

The AFL Europe have named the squad for the European Legion this year's Easter Series against the AIS-AFL Academy team, to be held in Guildford, England and Copenhagen, Denmark.

16 young players and 2 emergencies from around the European leagues have been selected, with a further 8 to be added from the recent combine in Dublin where GAA players were put through their paces.

Coaching the squad will be the Sydney Swans' famous Irish recruit and premiership player Tadhg Kennelly, along with former Richmond and Geelong premiership ruckman Brad Ottens.

Assistant coaches are former Demon Glenn Lovett, English footy stalwart Ian Mitchell and Icelandic journeyman Palli Finnson.

Full squad follows.

This article is only here because we've had some technical issues and the site won't let me edit the BWFL article now it's in the system.

Read the full story for some maps of where the clubs are located around Germany - although if we can work out what's going on with the editor privileges and fix it, we might merge this into the previous article.

Many involved in footy outside Australia know it can be tough to find locals willing to try out a completely unknown sport and then travel all the way across the nation for a game. For numerous clubs across the USA and Europe, the key to getting larger numbers involved is local footy, often on a 9-a-side basis, for people to try out the sport with a minimum initial outlay of time and money.

One such league trying to get going is the Baden-Württemberg Footy Liga (BWFL), based around new clubs in south-western Germany and loosely connected with the Stuttgart Emus club.

Grant Walsh from the Emus says that a local league was always part of the long-term planning for the area, spurred on by the foundation of the Ludwigsburg and Haslach clubs. "The Taipans started up quickly and introduced a fresh new perspective, it became clear that they would soon be looking for some real competition."

That competition may come from clubs hoping to get off the ground in Böblingen, Tübingen, Freiburg and Karlsruhe, as well as possibly a reserves squad from the Emus. Although some of those new sides are looking more likely to take the field this year than others, WFN brings you a short preview of the people working on each of them.