AFL overtaking NRL in QLD

[PhatBoy]

Australian Football is played regularly in over 55 countries and add hoc in a further 10 countries.
Australian Football is played in Nauru much more passionately than in Australia.
Here are the top twenty ranked countries.

1. Australia 1 1
2. Papua New Guinea 61.99 2 2 39
3. New Zealand 57.88 3 3 43
4. Ireland 56.68 4 4 77
5. Nauru 52.97 5 5 32
6. Great Britain 52.11 7 8 79
7. United States 49.86 6 6 57
8. Denmark 47.45 9 7 51
9. South Africa 46.61 10 9 32
10. France 45.32 8 10 33
11. Canada 43.46 11 11 55
12. China 39.91 12 12 23
13. Croatia 39.87 13 13 24
14. Fiji 38.01 14 14 19
15. Germany 35.50 15 15 32
16. Japan 35.06 16 16 34
17. Sweden 34.18 17 17 39
18. Indonesia 30.94 18 18 12
19. Pakistan 29.14 19 19 10
20. India 20.71 20 20 21

Up until Covid there was a "world cup", the AFL International Cup, every three years.
This has replaced by four regional competitions with Queensland being the hub of the Pacific competition.
Queensland plays a large part in the pathway for PNG players.

Couldn’t be more pleased for you.

 

[RedV3x]

Couldn’t be more pleased for you.

Especially these guys from the PNG into Queensland AFL.

Hewego Paul Oea | AFL

Follow Hewego Paul Oea's progress through AFL

www.goldcoastfc.com.au

Young PNG star set to make AFL debut for Brisbane Lions

The numbers of AFL players of Papua New Guinean descent is gradually catching up to the list of NRL players from the same homeland, after Bruce Reville missed a call from coach Chris Fagan about debut...

nit.com.au

 

[PhatBoy]

Especially these guys from the PNG into Queensland AFL.

Hewego Paul Oea | AFL

Follow Hewego Paul Oea's progress through AFL

www.goldcoastfc.com.au

Young PNG star set to make AFL debut for Brisbane Lions

The numbers of AFL players of Papua New Guinean descent is gradually catching up to the list of NRL players from the same homeland, after Bruce Reville missed a call from coach Chris Fagan about debut...

nit.com.au

That’s great mate. My sister was good friends with the late Sanford Wheeler: it’s not about to rival the World Series 30 years on from him playing with the swans is it. Geelong just pumped more than half a decade trying to get one of the first Pacifika-descended players (yes I realise Esava isn’t actually FROM Fiji) after NicNat into elite territory without it working. We have had 3 Irishmen in our team at one time in the last 12 months. I am aware that there are other nationalities that have experienced the sport.

 

[RedV3x]

That’s great mate. My sister was good friends with the late Sanford Wheeler

That makes you quite old.

I am aware that there are other nationalities that have experienced the sport.

Yes, there are loads of "other nationalities that have experienced the sport."
The players from the 55 counties regularly play Australian Rules Football are quite different to those people.
The PNG players are the first to follow a pathway from local league, state league to AFL.
Queensland is playing an ever increasing role in this pathway.

The AFLW is quite different with women players coming from a variety of countries with local leagues to the AFLW.

 

[PhatBoy]

That makes you quite old.



Yes, there are loads of "other nationalities that have experienced the sport."
The players from the 55 counties regularly play Australian Rules Football are quite different to those people.
The PNG players are the first to follow a pathway from local league, state league to AFL.
Queensland is playing an ever increasing role in this pathway.

The AFLW is quite different with women players coming from a variety of countries with local leagues to the AFLW.

I’m 40. Of course there are other nationalities that have experienced it. That’s not tantamount to it taking over the world, is it. Bayern Munich aren’t about to abandon the round ball game and go chips-in on Australian Football because it has a minuscule niche presence here and there.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

That makes you quite old.



Yes, there are loads of "other nationalities that have experienced the sport."
The players from the 55 counties regularly play Australian Rules Football are quite different to those people.
The PNG players are the first to follow a pathway from local league, state league to AFL.
Queensland is playing an ever increasing role in this pathway.

The AFLW is quite different with women players coming from a variety of countries with local leagues to the AFLW.

There's nuance to this. Almost all international play is not organic to the location and has links back to Australia for some reason, either to serve the expat Australian community or as a top-down approach by clubs to find athletic talent in a Cat B sense.

There's really not 55 countries playing it outside of that. There's maybe not even enough players to fill 55 teams doing that, outside of PNG, Nauru and New Zealand.

AFL London etc. is basically all expat Australians at the lower levels and maybe six teams at the top level of which they're required to play half locals - so many 3-4 teams worth of locals.

USA Nationals has, what, 40 teams with half Americans, so what, 20 teams' worth of players.

Saying "55 countries" is a bit meaningless without nuance and context. Outside of the geographically close Pacific countries, there's probably, what, 2000 genuinely local non-Australians actively playing Aussie Rules consistently? And many of those 2000 only have a team to play in because of the fact that such a team develop for largely expat Australian reasons (e.g. of the 75 or so non-Australians who play in the AFL London competition, they can only do so because there's a framework for them to play in to support the other 750 Australians in London who want to play AFL).

There's some limited historical development of the sport due to government and geopolitical reasons in South Africa, Pacific, Canada etc.

Outside of expat Australians or by extension servicing expat Australians there is basically zero cultural relevance of a playing Aussie Rules.