Australian rules football across the Tasman

For this instalment in the international footy series I talked to Rob Vanstom, the CEO of AFL NZ, with additional information supplied by Alex Braae, the media coordinator.

New Zealand is one of our closest neighbours and indeed was considered to be part of the Australasian football community until the advent of World War I, when the game all but disappeared across the Tasman.

In recent times it has become the mission of the NZ AFL (now AFL NZ) to develop the game of Australian football.

Rob Vanstom is the Chief Executive Officer of the AFL NZ. He’d been living in New Zealand for five years before becoming aware of the game’s presence in the country. He started out coaching the North Shore Tigers in Auckland before taking on the New Zealand national senior side.

There are currently five Australian Football Leagues in New Zealand, the most recent addition being Otago, with leagues also based in Auckland, Canterbury, Waikito, and Wellington.

Each year, the leagues send a representative team to the National Provincial Championships. Held in October this year, the NPCs were won for the third time in a row by the Canterbury side, who went through the competition this year undefeated.

The Auckland league premiership was taken out this year by the Waitakere Magpies, who defeated Mt Roskill 76-65. The AAFL features six senior clubs – Manurewa, Mt Roskill, North Shore, Pakuranga, University and Waitakere.

Rob says that there are 30,000 participants in Australian football programs in New Zealand. Of these, 95 percent are based in Kiwikick – the New Zealand variety of Auskick. Expatriate Australians would make up less than two percent of the total.

Since 2009, the Hawthorn football club has sponsored the Hawks Cup inter-school competition in New Zealand.

Australian football was formally sanctioned by the New Zealand Secondary School Sports Council in 2009 and in 2010 was introduced into 70 schools. Since then it has come along in leaps and bounds.

Matches are played on either an Oval or rectangle depending on availability, with team sizes ranging from 18-a-side in the senior leagues to 9- or 6-a-side. Vanstom tells me that the key to success is being able to modify the game to suit its surroundings.

Australian football receives an important media boost that is unavailable elsewhere by having extensive free-to-air coverage on Sommet Sports – six games live and three on delay.

New Zealand came third (for the second time) at the last International Cup, having won the competition in 2005, and are generally regarded as one of the ‘big 3’ of international Australian footy. New Zealand are ranked quite highly overall, with a win rate of 87 percent putting them over every other side to compete so far.

Other strong teams in the men’s division remain Ireland and Papua New Guinea. Vanstom says that they have some considerable advantages – PNG with its pathway into Queensland football, and Ireland with its strong Gaelic football community.

Vanstom says that the International Cup will see the debut of a New Zealand women’s team (The Kahus) in a major boost for international women’s competition.

In 2013 the AFL played its first game for premiership points outside of Australia at Wellington in New Zealand. The game was attended by more than 22,000 people, with hotels in the area sold out, and the Wellington council assured of its economic benefit – estimated at about $8.5 million for the day.

A deal for St Kilda to play there on Anzac Day for a further five years was finalised in September.

The AFL stages a draft in New Zealand which has resulted in a number of players being taken by Hawthorn, with Shem Tatapu and Kurt Heatherly being named to the rookie list in 2013.

Other players are on the International Scholarship list for St Kilda and Hawthorn.

Heatherly is an interesting story in his own right. From Waikito, at 14 he became the first international scholarship player to be signed by Hawthorn. His uncle is Geoff Hines, who played 12 games of rugby union as an All Black for New Zealand.

AFL New Zealand recently announced its New Zealand Heritage team, a team of current AFL players who could represent New Zealand under similar rules to that used by rugby league for the 2013 World Cup.

These included Beau Maister, Sam Mitchell, Shane Savage, Dustin Martin, Simon Black, Nathan Van Berlo, Paul Bower, Jordan Russell, Greg Broughton, Max Gawn, Aaron Edwards, Brent Renouf and Heath Grundy, among others.

Vanstom says that it would be nice to see a New Zealand Heritage side line up against a side like the Aboriginal All Stars for instance – and with no round ball!

Vanstom also mentions that there are 700,000 New Zealanders living in Australia. He says that there are some sides that have quite a few New Zealanders in their side, citing the NT Thunder as having at least five players originating in New Zealand.

Who knows how many more there are out there that could represent New Zealand?

If you would like to get involved in footy in New Zealand, please visit their website.