As a new season of footy in France is underway it is time to look back at a very exciting 2011 - 2012 season. For the first time in its young history, the France championship was divided in two separate divisions; The Super League (Bordeaux, Paris, Toulouse and Strasbourg) ultimately competing for the national title and the Development League (Aix-Marseille, Perpignan and Montpellier) offering valuable game time to young or struggling teams.

This separation was decided at the end of the 2010-2011 season to ease the pressure of travel on less established teams. But even this new format proved to be a challenge for the teams in the Development League as 4 out of 6 games had to be cancelled due to a lack of players. At the end of the season, which ran from September 2011 to March 2012, the Montpellier Fire-Sharks took the title easily defeating Aix-Marseille (60-36).

On the other hand, the Super league proved to be a success, offering what is shaping up to be a great rivalry between the Bordeaux Bombers and the Paris Cockerels. Both teams started the competition as favourites, Bordeaux being the reigning champion and Paris holding on the 2011 French Cup.

Ciaran Kilkenny has followed in the footsteps of fellow Irishman John Heslin (last year) in quitting the AFL just months after coming out from Ireland to join his club. Originally Kilkenny had been a little cat and mouse about whether he would join the Carlton Football Club until late last year when it was revealed he would be joining Hawthorn.

The Hawks took Kilkenny in the draft as an international rookie but it seems that after a very short time Kilkenny has made up his mind that he preferred to be at home in Ireland.

In his statement Kilkenny said "It may seem like a short time to spend in Australia but I have always given absolute commitment to any team in which I was involved and I feel it would be unfair on both Hawthorn and myself to continue in a situation where I am not 100% committed and happy in myself."

In a story which may have gone under the radar for many international footy fans late this year, the last weekend in September not only saw the Swans defeat the Hawks in the AFL Grand Final, but also the first match played by a Belgian footy side for over five years.

The Belgians travelled to the Netherlands for a 3-team tournament against Dutch sides the Amsterdam Devils and The Hague Storks, the comp dubbed the Benelux Cup. Although the Belgians went down against both Dutch clubs, the scorelines were quite respectable, losing to The Hague by only 5 points.

Belgium was previously home to the Brussels Saints, who back in 2005 won the EU Cup, but the Saints have long since folded and no footy was played in Belgium in the interim. WFN will be eagerly watching developments of Europe's newest side in 2013.

For more on the nascent Belgian footy club, visit the AFL Belgium website or their Facebook page.

Port Adelaide rallied inside the last minute to kick the winning goal, ending the most fantastic game of footy Europe has ever seen.

The Bulldogs put out a young team, but they came out strong in the first quarter, with early goals from Ayce Cordy, Liam Jones and Luke Dalhaus. The Bulldogs then further extended their lead in the second quarter, with new recruit Koby Stevens putting on an impressive debut performance and Liam Picken exciting the curiosity of the crowd by leaping onto the shoulders of the Port defence in a textbook specky to grab the mark.

The Dogs were able to effectively control play for the majority of the game, seemingly unanswered by Port. And by midway through the third quarter, Port were trailing by 39 points, a gap that was surely insurmountable, and it looked like it was game over for the young and inexperienced Port team.

 

Tobietta Rhyman interviewed the captains of both the Continent and Islands teams after match at The Oval earlier today and filed the following videos. The European Islands team defeated the European Continent team 11.11 (77) to 2.3 (15).

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Thanks to the great coverage on Twitter by Tobietta we can tell you that the European Islands team defeated the European Continent team 11.11 (77) to 2.3 (15) at The Oval in London. In the main game Port Adelaide stormed home to snatch victory 14.4 (88) to the Western Bulldogs 13.9 (87). More to come from Tobie...

AFL Europe present their first ever Footy Show to preview the JLT All Stars match being played as the curtain raiser to the Western Bulldogs vs Port Adelaide match at The Oval in London.  Hosted by Ben MacCormack and Ciarán O' Hara.

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Fresh out of the Euro Cup and having put on some impressive performances at country level, the very best of European Aussie Rules talent is now set to take the stage one step further as they go head to head against each other for the JLT European All-Stars game.

What better place and time to showcase Europe’s very own football stars, than as a curtain raiser for the Elastoplast AFL European Challenge, where the Western bulldogs will face off against Port Adelaide this Saturday at Kia Oval.

World Footy News caught up with some of the players to hear what they had to say about the game.

The players from the Western Bulldogs and Port Adelaide arrived in London today ahead of Saturday’s AFL European Challenge exhibition game. AFL Europe reported that the players also got their first look round Kia Oval, the venue for the game, for some pre match training runs.

Meanwhile Port Adelaide’s new coach Ken Hinkley and Bulldogs’ coach Brendan McCartney were at the pre-match press conference.

Both clubs have fielded young teams for the tournament and are expected to use the opportunity to debut new recruits.

Despite this, Port Adelaide coach Hinkley said he told his players, “Just go out and play the game of footy. You’ve got to go after the game in a fair dinkum way, because it’s a contact game. If you’re not prepared to play footy, you’ll end up in real trouble. Hopefully they get through the game okay.”

On the opposite side, Bulldogs coach McCartney added, “With young players, the more you see them, the more you learn about them. To see them go away for eight weeks and then to come back and their body shape changes; they’re a bit bigger in the leg and a bit stronger in the hips – you can see their progression and that’s really important.”