Even our local ABC radio Albury/Wodonga have a winter sports program with Joesph Thomsen and a sports hillbully from Broken Hill ABC radio that only give us AFL and they call it the Sport report!

it occurred to me that with Australian soccer having pulled out of the Oceania confederation, it’s a nice little combination of factors to give Australian Football a good shot at getting somewhere – - – I wonder if that’s been a consideration in deciding to actually have a reasonable (I stop short of saying ‘fair dinkum’) crack at it.

Australian Footy was palyed briefly in NZ post gold rush and by expat Aussies in the main i believe. That’s along time ago.

Who knows how good NZ would be at our game. NZers are obsessively opposed to most things Australian however and it has been stated that the game would have to compromise any referance to its cultural heritage in order to placate Kiwis to be involved at any serious level, so thats quite insulting for starters.

I personally don’t care one iota that NZers do not take an interest in our game as there are more than enough Trans Tasman jingo contests to endure as is and if anything, it is refreshing to be able to follow something that does not include NZers for a change.

I have watched Junior Kiwi teams over the years, play in the now defunct’ Barrasi Cup’ and can say although their entusiasm was compendable, especially when pitted against any Australian teams which was almost akin to war for them, their skill levels were no where near as good as say the PNG teams and this despite far greater resources and support from OZ.

The NZ teams I have witnessed in action and this has also been said of the recent VAFA U18′s v the NZ Falcon U20′s, tend to play quite an agricultural style game, which has much to do with their Union background. These games are always blown quite liberally otherwise the free kick count would prove impossibly demoralising for the young Kiwi lads, who are very hard at the ball and have little restraint or understanding for the finer points of the game.

MY real concern is more to do with the AFL potentially gifting a NZ city a franchise at the expense of our loyal demographics. This is unacceptable to me, especially since NZ would have absolutely diddly pedigree to offer such a franchise. Any NZ AFL organisation would be entirely patronised from the players, coaching staff through to management by Australians so it would be a purely corporate top down move on their part which must NOT be allowed to happen with ‘Australian’ Football.

Canberra, the capital of our country continues to campaign for inclusion in the indigenous codes elite league as well as having to consatntly grovel for more elitte fixtures being played there. Conversely Wellington, the capital of a soveriegn country and an AFL backwater, is being touted for two Doggies home games after doing the dirty on the ACT in this respect for 2010. That is also insulting.

The ACT have quite a decent Aust Footy pedigree and in fact, any place you care to mention in this country compared to NZ does. I would say the exceptiopn in venturing off shore for some talent would be PNG in this respect. T.I and the Tiwis especially, are extremely passionate and skilled at the indig game and close to PNG as is all of the top end where the game is very strong indeed, so the AFL really should be focusing more on our backyard potential rather than any Kiwi corporate driven folly.

Cheers

Why this international expansion?

Well – it is not the AFL going out and trying to evangelise the world – no matter that some cynics in the media have tried to portray it as.

The growth from zilch to 40,000 in 15 years was nearly all expat Aussies wanting to play the game they loved where they were living and inspiring local converts to join them.

In the past few years the AFL has had to take notice because the international Aussie Rules leagues wanted to come and play a world cup style tournament in Melbourne. The AFL found itself having to be host to uninvited guests. Then it found by last year with the jump in standard in the 3rd International Cup – that these guests had a lot of talent.

I suspect the AFL’s current interest is they see international development shoring up the standard of the competition through increased talent.

If 30 years from now (and very possible) there is 1 million participants in Australia and another million overseas – then the standard of an 18 or 20 teams AFL competition would be very high – drawing more fans, TV dollars, merchandising, kids wanting to play the game.

By then a niche global TV market of a miniscule % of world’s sports fans could translate to a doubling of TV rights for the AFL.

There is another side to the globalisation coin. Certainly in Australia globalisation supports interest in big international sports like Soccer. But conversely a tiny growth of Australian Football globally leads to big dividends for the indigenous code here.

http://www.worldfootynews.com

By the way I think NZ would actually be quite good at Aussie rules Republican, it may be an insult to you as you think us below your wonderful game, but there was a reason it was at least as popular as other football codes in the South Island from 1850s to 1870s. The problem with the coming of Rugby School rules was that it meant the end of a brief period of cross-polination between footies in NZ (particularly in the coastal strips) but since then we’ve defined success in sport first by seeking to beat Albion and then more recently you guys (particularly after your RU got better and our Cricket got better!)

Thanks to you too.

I trust you have taken on board some of the real concerns from those who DON’T support the internationalist agenda as well.

Cheers

-To inform readers that the game of Australian Rules is specificley devoted to clubs
-Representative football appeals to people in the 21st Century (I should know, I am a minor after all)
-The game is too “One-Dimensional!” Modernisation in our game must be acheived
-The best code of football is Australian Rules, why are we limiting it to this country
-International awareness is better than International recruitment

Thanks for all the replies!

‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ surely!

AndyRoo

This is an Interesting analogy which is not often realized with re the Indigenous peoples of this continent and NZ’s and that is Aboriginal Australians were far more fragmented and broken up into numerous language groups. They were often at odds with each other and the immense vastness of the country made it near impossible in countering the imperialist advances of perfidious Mother Albion.

Conversely, the Maori according to my sources, spoke the one language which helped their cause no end and geographically they were advantaged in this respect as well.

Just thought this should be shared given the predictable stereotyping that sometimes ensues when broaching this subject.

I will endeavor to get back on track now.

Cheers

Cheers

And also the treatment of indegenous people isn’t a favourable comparison for Australians.

We Kiwis are better at taking risks if only because all those who came here definitely had a lucid notion about how far we are from everywhere else, which didn’t appear to be the case for some Australians who came from the old country

Finally there’s a general consensus about how friendly we are as a people, maybe due to the long-lasting tradition in these parts of being hospitable to all outsiders or maybe as part of a realisation of the fact that we need to get the most from all the visitors we get

You have got to be ‘Roars’ solitary Hippo Boffin surely?

I must defer to you on anything relating to hippos in future, pygmy or otherwise mate.

I am impressed.

The GWS Pygmy Hippos does have a ring to it however – the Canberra Parasites???

Cheers.

There are many more deserving local demos to nurture and foster and quite frankly to go to NZ would devalue our game irreparably.

You know it makes sense

Cheers

had to re-read to remember,

Canberra is the parasite, and GWS/Swans/Sydney based talent pathways in general – - get them properly built and Canberra can come along for the ride,

but, have too many half rrrr’s'd poorly constructed compromises in the short term and the pygmy hippo (GWS/Swans/Sydney pathways) remains a pygmy……..rather than a full sized man-eating river dwelling hippo.

I say we invade NZ.

Everyone’s a winner. NZers would learn to talk properly., Australia would have an unbeatable RU team, the AFL could have a franchise in Auckland.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo6fgZ-dbOw

10 years after that then they complain about Warney retiring.

We’re both similar in terms of demographics and history.. I guess its not too much different to the US-Canada rivalry.

I make it firm policy to never employ New Zealanders.

Respect the haka though. One of the best cultural sights in sport.

Redb

I will say the resentment is more from the Kiwi side, while most Australians are quite impervious to how deep seated this collective NZ sentiment runs, their cringe being a serious affliction of national proportion.

Culturally we share some British veneer that gives the appearance to the rest of the world that we are one and the same however this is overstated and along way from the truth. Our Britishness and colonial foundations were very different indeed and I could elaborate on many other factors that make NZ and Australia like cheese and chalk really, but that’s about all i will say here jus.

Cheers