The Collingwood Football Club today announced it has signed American Seamus McNamara to a two-year international rookie contract. The 24-year-old, who hails from Milwaukee in the US state of Wisconsin, is a powerful athlete who stands 204 centimetres and weighs 104 kilograms.

McNamara trialled with the Magpies in Melbourne back in September, and returned on the weekend to commence pre-season training with the team, after accepting the club’s contract offer. Collingwood’s national recruiting manager Derek Hine told http://collingwoodfc.com.au that McNamara could develop into a ruck or key forward option.

The Ottawa Swans Australian Football Club is seeking applications for the position of Head Coach for the 2010 season. The Head Coach requires strong leadership qualities and is counted on to develop an excellent on-field product and to inspire team members to perform at a consistently high level .

The following are the minimum expectations of the Swans Head Coach in 2010:
- A strong commitment to develop Australian football in Canada's National Capital Region ;
- A focus on the development of first and second year players ;
- A full commitment to the position for the entire 2010 Ontario Australian Football League season, including pre-season planning, training, the regular season, and playoffs ;
- Knowledge and understanding of Australian football;
- Excellent written and oral communication skills in English (communication skills in French would be considered a strong asset ); and
- An ability to write detailed match reports.

Press Release from Denver Bulldogs.

Mason, Ohio – October 11th, 2009. The Denver Bulldogs are once again the Australian Football National Champions. The US Footy League National Championship tournament was held over the October 11th weekend in Mason, Ohio. Thirty two men’s and eight women’s teams from across the US and Canada competed for the title.

On April 20th this year Australian Navy frigates the HMAS Sydney and HMAS Ballarat set sail for a world tour which included a July stop on the United States northeast coast. The trip was for several reasons including taking part in operation Northern Trident. It wasn't all wargames and the Aussie sailors combined forces to take on one of the top USAFL sides, the Baltimore-Washington Eagles. Both men's and women's matches were played. In the men's, the match-fit Americans proved to be too strong, winning Eagles 16.9 (105) to HMAS Sydney / Ballarat 10.2 (62).

A gallery of the day can be seen on the Australian Navy website.

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Highlights of the Denver Bulldogs vs Seattle Grizzlies Grand Final courtesy of USFootyNews.com.

Denver Bulldogs have won the US Nationals for the seventh time since the year 2000. They won a close, hard fought Grand Final match in Mason, Ohio against Seattle Grizzlies 2.5 (17) to 2.2 (14).

In other results Calgary won Division 2, Dallas won Division 3, Ohio Valley/St Louis won Division 4 and Calgary Blue won the Women's final.

DIVISON 1 FINAL
Denver 2.5 (17) defeated Seattle 2.2 (14)

Paul Roos Medal for Best & Fairest - Brendan Feddema of Denver
Coopers Medal for Most Consistent - Jeff Purcell of Seattle & Clayton Holmes of Vancouver
Hayden Kennedy Medal for Grand Final Umpiring - Greg Everett & Stephen Arnott
Geoff Cann Medal for MVP in Final - Dominic Kennedy of Denver

Other final results below.

The 2009 USFooty National Championships kicked off Friday in Mason, Ohio with the club administrators conference. Some great sessions were presented to club representatives to take back to their team mates to help grow the sport in the US. The Australian Exchange program for American players to country footy clubs and universities in Western Australia has shown great growth since we heard about it last year. WFN scribe Chris Adams also presented on his success with running structured local kids clinics in the summer in DC - a great blueprint for clubs wanting to start out with AusKick/USFootyKids. Former WFN correspondent Jake Anson from Calgary also had a great presentation on the success of recruiting and player development for the Calgary Kookaburras womens side - from their growth and success, it seems they have a great blueprint on how to develop womens footy.

38 teams are taking part in the tournament over the weekend. The Day 1 results are posted below. Denver and Seattle looking strongest in their Division 1 pools.

It is billed as the biggest Australian football tournament in the world. Certainly, it is hard to think of an example comparable to a tournament where about 800 players turn up to play in some 30 mens teams and 8 womens teams across 4 mens divisions and 1 womens division over two days in Mason OH.

Teams arrived into Mason from all over the US and Canada on Friday October 9. Ten years ago, I arrived into Cincinnati (not far from Mason) and was taken aback by seeing a couple hundred footy players playing on two fields for the 1999 USAFL National Tournament. To see five fields across the vast expanse of Heritage Oak Park really is quite something.

The two top seeds for Division I are the Baltimore Washington Eagles, who were ranked #1 in the last USFooty Top 10 poll and the Denver Bulldogs, who have the most National Championships of any team in USFooty. The BW Eagles played 11 games this year, including beating a team made up of Australian sailors from two battleships that came into Baltimore Harbor during the summer. They lost one game by 2 points to the second seed New York Magpies. The Denver Bulldogs have had a pretty quiet year. All their games were on the road with wins over Kansas City and Dallas and losses to San Diego and Orange County.

For more on the tournament and previews of all the divisions go to USFootyNews.com.

The second of the "Hey Hey it's Saturday" reunion shows, curiously seen on a Wednesday night, included a cross to a lady in Atlanta in the US.

Back in September, Hey Hey had called upon Aussie expats via Facebook to have 'Hey Hey' parties. And so, with a whole bunch of ex pat Aussies around her, we saw the camera pan the room and in doing so glimpsed a large "USfooty" sign (around a TV monitor).

This seemed a curious happy coincidence until host Daryl Somers questioned the lady 'hosting' the link about what she did in the US.

It turns out - and apologies I can't recall her name - that she is the IT administrator/manager of USFooty and she provided a pretty good plug for USFooty and the up coming nationals in Mason.

The irony as well is that she'd set up the link such that there was less (no) delay compared to the audio delay with the Hey Hey live-cross to the Black Eyed Peas just over the railway tracks at Rod Laver Arena!!!

She did a great job - if anyone can provide her name and perhaps a link to a youtube of her on Hey Hey would be fabulous.

The USAFL has announced the seedings for the 2009 National Championships to be held in Mason, Ohio with a record number of teams playing this year. The seeding Committee has finalized the seeding pools for almost all divisions, with Division IV and the women's division still requiring some final revisions (added when available).

As always, this has been a difficult task, especially given the complexity inherent in a national competition (e.g., trying to compare teams that never played each other during the season, or did not play many or any games during the season). The goal of the seedings is to promote a lively and balanced competition based on the information available. The nature of this task is inherently imperfect, and although we know this subject could be fodder for endless debate, we assure you that we have done our best.

The seedings and some rationale behid them can be viewed below.