December saw two of the major NZAFL Grand Finals played, with the favourites coming home in both the Wellington and Auckland leagues.

In Auckland, the University Blues ran out comfortable winners over the Mt Roskill Saints, while in Wellington the Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs, with only 2 Australians in their 24-man matchday squad, gave the Wellington City Saints a 102-point hiding.

The best one hundred and ten young AFL players in PNG have recently attended the National Institute of Sport in Goroka (30th Nov – 2nd Dec). There they were tested and assessed through a range of activities including games, skill and physical testing, mental challenges and lectures on the requirements to play AFL at the highest level.

Selection from the National Championships, held in Lae in September, has now seen the best 35 boys in Under 14, 16 and 18 vying for spots at the NIS to go to Australia in 2008 as part of AFLPNG’s National Talent Player Pathway.

Two PNG juniors recently attended Australia’s Elite AIS/AFL academy camp. The players Stanis Susuve and John James have played the past year in the Queensland local competitions and were the only international players selected for attendance. As many of our readers would know, AFLPNG has a programme that sees their elite athletes competing at state level in Queensland providing a talented player pathway which is clear and logical.

In 2004, the creation of the Solomon Islands Australian Football Association (SIAFA) was creating a positive outlook for a new Pacific stronghold for footy, although it disappeared almost as quickly as it came.

In the meantime however, footy has still been continuing in and around the Solomons capital Honiara, assisted largely by Australian Defence Force and Police personnel stationed in the islands as part of the Regional Assistance Mission in the Solomon Islands (RAMSI).

One of the main drivers behind footy in Honiara is Captain Daniel Strack. WFN caught up with Captain Strack to talk about the current state of play regarding footy in the Solomons.

The Auckland AFL Premiership is soon to be decided with the race down to four - University Blues, Mt Roskill Saints, Waitakere Magpies and North Shore Tigers. The AAFL Season has been one dominated percentage-wise by the University Club, winning 8 games from 10, who surprisingly only finished a game clear of Mt Roskill and Waitakere. North Shore Tigers scraped in with a 50% win/loss ratio, but with NZ Coach and NZAFL CEO Rob Vanstam as their coach their chances cannot be dismissed. Certainly Uni are going in in top form with key forwards Todd Taverna and Thomas Taungakiavia kicking 36 goals between them in their last two wins.

The AFLPNG Kurakums, the national under-16 Girls team, will arrive home this week as the Queensland State U16 Girls Champions. They did not lose a game throughout the tournament and the only opposition side to score against them was the other Grand Finalist, Cape York.

In only their second attempt the Kurakums have surprised the AFL fraternity in Queensland by dominating the Under 16 National Championships. Their domination was evidenced by the selection of nine PNG players in the Queensland All Stars Team.

As strange as it first sounds, the New Zealand Australian Football League (NZAFL) wants to play in the Charles Perkins National Aboriginal Football Championships in Australia! NZ attended the Australian Country Football Championships on the Gold Coast during 2006 and played the Aboriginal All-Stars there. The result was a pasting, as the ex-Brisbane Lion Darryl White lead his team to a resounding thumping. However NZAFL CEO Robert Vanstam has revealed that he wants to send a team to play at the carnival and will explore that possibility with the organisers of the next event.

The Wellington AFL season is due to commence on Sunday 4th November. The recent NZ National Provincial Championship tournament, held in the capital, saw the Wellington team win matches against Canterbury and Waikato and lose to the Auckland outfit by 7 points.

The NPC has proven to be an excellent springboard into the forthcoming season. The competition has struggled a little in recent times to have four committed and competitive teams, along with a central committee who have perhaps not always offered the inclusive and respected leadership required. Now read on and look at the positive outlook for each Club as provided to WFN.

The 2007 AFL PNG Junior National Championships were held at Igam Barracks, Lae over the period 24 September - 28 September 2007. The Championships were a huge success with over 400 children attending from across PNG. They came from the Islands by Boat, the highlands by PMV and Port Moresby by plane. The accommodation, catering and playing facilities were all given the thumbs up by the children. Even the rain and slippery ovals could not dampen their enthusiasm. Igam Barracks was viewed as a wonderful place to hold such a prestigious event and during the Championships the participants had a visit from the Commander PNGDF Commodore P. Ilau. The Commodore expressed his support for the Championships at Igam and was suitably impressed by the organisation and discipline of such a large number of well-behaved young Papua New Guineans.

Back in 2004, a group of Solomon Islanders and Australian defence personnel formed the Solomon Islands Australian Football Association with the hope of forming a stable, organised league in the country. However, after some promising initial clinics and scratch matches, the organisation went into hiatus.

Three years later and the game is back on with a memorial match held in Honiara last Saturday. Two sides, mainly formed of local Islanders with a few Australian army personnel thrown in, took the field decked out in Eagles and Bombers gear, with the Bombers holding on to win the Clark-Dunning trophy in a very tight tussle.