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The following is a brief summary of the March '09 tour of Papua New Guinea by the Indigenous Boomerangs side.

The match in the capital, Port Moresby, was the Under 18 PNG Kupundas triumphant by one point, 9.12 (66) to 9.11 (65) at the University of PNG track oval. Of just as much interest was the excellent turnout of around 2000 to 2500 spectators (different sources). Best players for PNG: Kayne, Nicholas, Pena, Norman, Carbry and for the Flying Boomerangs: Ah Chee, McMasters, Crowe, Crook-Harrison, Wilson.

A detailed review of the match was written in PNG's The National, by Peter Pusal - see Rules tourists get pipped by a point. Apparently the match finished with a thrilling last gasp goal - "The Boomerangs led 9.11 (65) to Kupundas 8.12 (60) with less than 30 seconds of play remaining in the match when Logo gathered the loose ball from a desperate surge up field and snapped a goal from 40m to grab an amazing win on the stroke of full-time".

What was expected to be a more developmental PNG side (drawn mainly from Highlands and Momase) took to the field in the town of Lae for match two. With a game under their belt the Australian Aboriginal young men came out of their shells in a strong performance, winning 7.10 (52) to 2.2 (14). But excitingly a crowd of 7000 to 8000 turned out for the youth match, a great sign of interest in the game.

AFL Oceania's Andrew Cadzow summed up the two matches as "Huge crowds and magnificent football". The PNG AFL then hosted a fundraising dinner at the Grand Palace restaurant after the match in which B Mobile announced a K300,000 sponsorship of AFL PNG’s junior programmes over the next three years.

You can check out photos from the tour in our new media gallery (click on the image above or visit the gallery through the Multimedia menu at the top of this page - more photos from international footy to be added in the coming months).

The New Zealand Under 20 NPC was held at Westminster Park on March 14th and 15th in Christchurch, with the Auckland side undefeated in their four games and deserved winners against the spirited opposition of Canterbury and Wellington.

Talent scouts from four AFL clubs attended the weekend's matches in an event that would have provided thoughtful insights into the game's current development status as well as what potential opportunities may exist in the future - something obviously being discussed at NZAFL level.

Not only are Queensland Australian football competitions the launching point for many young Papuans to begin their football scholarships but the local clubs have excelled in supporting the AFL PNG organisation and other parts of Oceania in other ways.

At the annual AFLPNG Junior Championships in 2008 each team that attended had their jumpers supplied by an AFL Queensland affiliated club - Redland, Noosa, Mt Gravatt, Aspley, the Brisbane Lions and Coorparoo. It's one very practical way in which individuals and clubs that are looking to support the international growth of the game have been able to make it happen.

According to a recent article, "Footy Aid", an AFLQ initiative to get football gear into the Oceania region, has seen over 2000kg of second hand (and sometimes new) jumpers, boots, footballs and general football resources filter into countries like PNG, Nauru, Samoa, Tonga and Fiji in just the last 18 months.

Congratulations from WFN to all involved and read on for the full article here Local football helps PNG

For Queenslanders interested in helping, to make donations to assist the "Footy Aid" program, please drop gear into your regional AFLQ office or contact Andrew Cadzow at afloceania@aflq.com.au.

On a humid and wet Gold Coast evening the GC team made its first on field debut for points - and it also saw new recruit Stanis Susuve from PNG play his first game for them. With their AFL debut not set to happen until 2011, this is the building blocks for what will come then. The TAC Cup, the elite under 18 competition made up mostly of Victorian teams as the development pathway and dinner table for AFL scouts and recruiters ever hungry for new talent. Most of what they see from the Gold Coast boys though will be off the table as these youngsters will be outside the draft system already committed to the new enterprise.

Whether that is best for these youngsters in terms of their football future is debatable, but what is not debatable is that it is best for the Gold Coast Football Club’s future. It should guarantee that along with a number of other draft concessions that they can enter the AFL competition with a strong and competitive player group but also with a bunch of home grown talent that has gone through the same talent development finishing school as the match hardened Victorians that dominate the draft each year.

In great news for international footballers looking to make it to the game's highest level, Gold Coast have announced that Papuan Stanis Susuve has been listed alongside his teammate from the Mosquitoes, Amua Pirika, to join their squad. And the Gold Coast coach, former West Coast Eagles premiership player Guy McKenna, has expressed a hope that more PNG players will join the AFL-endorsed club in coming years. If either recruit is successful when the club debuts in the AFL in 2010 then surely AFL scouts will encourage greater investment in international markets. An AFL Papuan New Guinea press release follows.

PNG have continued their great efforts in securing scholarship places for their junior and development players. Added to the success of the recent One Tribe tour of PNG it all bodes well for future success in so many ways for Australian football in PNG. Scott Reid, Chairman of the AFLPNG Board, was kind enough to give WFN a brief rundown on this year’s crop of footy exports - a staggering 24 in all.

And in news just in, expect information on yet another exciting development for PNG footy shortly.

New Zealander Moss Doran, regularly mentioned in WFN articles such as this one, has this year stepped up in the footballing world and moved from country Victoria to the AFL Queensland, impressing in his first outing with his new club.

Doran, who represented the NZ Falcons at the last International Cup, has played the last few seasons for South Warrnambool in the strong Hampden League of country Victoria. This season he has done what many Kiwis have done before, and moved to Queensland!

However, it is not a life of lazing on the beaches that has drawn him there, but rather the chance to further develop his Australian football skills playing for Mt Gravatt Vultures in the very strong AFL Queensland competition.

To read about his latest exploits, see New Zealander Impresses.

Nauru, the tiny Pacific nation that made a fortune from bird guano and then ran out of the stuff sending the country near broke, has relaunched its domestic competition under a exciting new system. This is a country that came 5th in the 2008 International Cup, with most of the country AFL mad and looking for a long term solution to getting domestic footy happening again.

Unfortunately the Nauruans played the game on a village/tribal basis which created quite a violent contest at times, especially when you consider that the ovals lacked any great covering of grass. As a result it has been some years since the domestic competition has been played in a formal manner and given the nation’s excellent results at IC08 the place was cherry ripe for the game to reinvent itself.

The AFL Queensland 2009 Under 18 State Championships have recently concluded, with two PNG players being selected in the state All-Star team.

Stanis Susuve from the Country Kookaburras and Peter Labi from the Suncoast Power have been included in a 21 man All-Star team chosen from the Championships. They will now join members of the Gold Coast squad in a special pre-season trial at Carrara at 11am on Saturday 28 March.

The match will be an opportunity for the championship standouts, who have not yet been involved in the Gold Coast training squad, to further their cause ahead of the upcoming season.

The Australian Indigenous youth team, known as the Flying Boomerangs, have bounced back to decisively win the second and final game of their tour of Papua New Guinea. The match was played in Lae, around 300 km north of the capital (Port Moresby), being PNG's second biggest city at around 90,000.

It's thought that the PNG youth side that faced the Boomerangs in Lae was mostly drawn from around that area (Highlands and Momase, which mainly covers the northwest of the country), rather than being the players that defeated the visitors by a point in game one. This showed on the scoreboard, with the Aussie boys winning by 38 points.

Flying Boomerangs 7.10 (52)
PNG Kupundas (Highlands and Momase) 2.2 (14)