Hawks defender Stephen Gilham recently travelled across the Tasman to present the Club's newest International Scholarship holder Ben Miller with his Hawthorn guernsey.

Miller played his first Australian football game for the Otago Boys’ School in 2010 against the university team, Otago Riot. It was in his second game that he took a high mark well above his opponents in the pack and set up several scoring opportunities from the wing where it became clear Ben had potential to play this game. Given that so far Otago has no formal competition with just a University Club, that play spasmodically, and some junior development programmes within a few secondary schools, this is a monumental achievement.

In February 2011 he travelled to Auckland for the NZ under 20 National Provincial Championships playing for Wellington. Showing his potential, Ben was selected to play for the NZ U20's against VAFA and NZ U16 Oceania Cup 2011 where he was instrumental in the team’s success.
 

Shortly after the 2011 AFL Oceania Youth Cup, the Fiji coach, Glen Butler said goodbye. The reason being that his stint as an AYAD officer in Fiji had come to an end. The AYAD program is referenced over and over again in respect to Australian Football in the Pacific. Worldfootynews asked Glen to reflect on his time.

Former North Melbourne star Wayne Schwass says in the Herald Sun that New Zealand can develop into a strong AFL breeding ground and wants to see a match played across the Tasman for premiership points.

AFL New Zealand continues to push the league for a home-and-away match to be played in the country as early as next year, with Anzac Day suggested as a potential date.

Schwass who was born in New Zealand backed taking a game across the Tasman. "We are into Tasmania, the AFL are exploring China, and I understand that from a commercial point of view, but New Zealand is three hours across the ditch."

New Zealand-born Hawk Shane Savage will host eight players from AFLNZ after the Club’s open training session tomorrow at the Ricoh Centre, formerly Waverley Park.

Savage will have a light kick on the oval with his compatriots, who have been living in Melbourne to improve their football skills, before they return home to play in the New Zealand Hawks team pitted against an AIS-AFL Academy squad.

Along with Samoa, the other main absentee from the 2011 AFL Oceania Youth Cup tournament was the Solomon Sharks, who had debuted in 2010 to the delight of many.  As it turned out this year, the will was there to attend, but, the finances is another issue entirely.  The Solomons were able though to leverage off neighbours PNG and sent 2 players plus a team manager along with the main PNG squad.

 Ed Burton is the AFL development officer in the Solomons, and he recently prepared a 2011 year in review, noting that it was written/published on the AFL Solomons facebook page during the recent Youth Cup.

One of the clear disappointments in the vibrant Pacific region for Australian Football was the non-appearance of Samoa at both the 2011 International Cup and the recent Youth Tournament in Fiji.

Here is an update on AFL Samoa. AFL Samoa has a newly re-formed and restructured board and committee. Across three days in late November they were pleased to host a visit from AFL Asia Pacific Manager of Football Operations, Andrew Cadzow. Andrew was in Samoa to among other things to convene the first ever AFL Samoa Coaching and Umpiring AFL Level 1 Accreditation workshop. Outside of that, Andrew also took time to run some skills clinics.

The AFL Youth Oceania Cup tournament wrapped up last weekend.  Like 2010 in Tonga, an important element of the week was the AFL Combine testing conducted.  This time around, on the Saturday of the tournament, 40 selected players were tested.

Like a number of other fledgling AFL national programs, the AFL Vanuatu program runs a facebook page. And today a pretty special review was posted of the efforts and experience of the Volcanoes in becoming the first national AFL team from Vanuatu.

Read the full article here.

With the pre-tournament favourite and reigning title holder PNG prevented from defending their title after what was a shock loss to Tonga in the downpour of Thursday afternoon; the New Zealand Hawks more accurate finishing provided them a solid 21 pt win over Nauru in the Grand Final of the AFL Youth Oceania Cup.

Result from the Flying Boomerangs v Under-18 South Pacific match played today at Albert Park, Suva, Fiji. 

After last years surprise win by the South Pacific over the Boomerangs in Tonga, this years rematch has seen the  Flying Boomerangs 10.12 (72) exacting revenge over the Under-18 South Pacific 3.4 (22).