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.

 

[RedV3x]

Outside of expat Australians

Here are the top twenty ranked countries
When they play internationally, expats are prohibited from playing.
The last column is the number of international games played.
PNG is ranked #2 because it has over 70,000 players across the country.

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

AFL PNG Development | AFL Queensland

www.aflq.com.au

"AFLPNG Development are the AFL’s development arm in Papua New Guinea, with 21 full-time staff and a strong focus on development and talent.
The team at AFLPNG Development conduct Coaching, Umpiring and Match play programs across six provinces of PNG, with approximately 70,000 boys, girls, men & women annually, aged from 5 – 40 years taking part.

With a direct link to the AFLQ Talent pathway you will also see the AFL PNG National Academy Teams competing in the AFL QLD Youth Academy Pathway each year.

The world beating national men’s Mozzies and women’s Flames teams are continually at the pointy end the International Cup every three years with the Mozzies winning the past two competitions."

 

[RedV3x]

Of course there are other nationalities that have experienced it.

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.

That’s not tantamount to it taking over the world,

It's more like the world's coming to Australia.

I have travelled widely and umpired Australian Football in many countries.
The common denominator with these players is the love of the game of Australian football.
Another common denominator with these players is that they want to play for their country.
A.T.M. women from around the world want to play in the AFLW.
Now, a few men form the PNG are being given that opportunity.

 

[threenewpadlocks]

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

Many of these teams have not functionally had a team since the last Australian-based IC in 2017. Including them in supposed World Rankings is a bit pointless when they potentially haven't been active for 7 years.

So they were able to get 25 locals to come to Australia, doesn't prove anything. Just that there's 500 active locals playing the game overseas, which I've conceded. The AFL Germany podcast on the International Board (10 years old) said they had six teams with about 1/3 German IC eligible players. So they formed one team out of half the eligible players, many of whom couldn't take work leave/pay for a trip to Australia. Anyone who was an active player and qualified for Germany could effectively represent their national team. It's not really a sign of an expansive participation base, is it?

Many of these 500 players are only engaged in the game because of a preexisting relationship (such as a friendship) with an AFL expat, or that simply the ability to play in a club was formed by an expat. How many of the USAFL's clubs were founded or functionally developed by an non-Australian? Hardly any. It's not organic growth outside of just the Australian expat community bringing its culture along with it. It's like saying that you can get Vegemite in some stores around the world so Vegemite is growing in popularity globally organically. It isn't. It's just expat Austrlaians bringing vegemite along with them for cultural reasons.

"AFLPNG Development are the AFL’s development arm in Papua New Guinea, with 21 full-time staff and a strong focus on development and talent.
The team at AFLPNG Development conduct Coaching, Umpiring and Match play programs across six provinces of PNG, with approximately 70,000 boys, girls, men & women annually, aged from 5 – 40 years taking part.

With a direct link to the AFLQ Talent pathway you will also see the AFL PNG National Academy Teams competing in the AFL QLD Youth Academy Pathway each year.

The world beating national men’s Mozzies and women’s Flames teams are continually at the pointy end the International Cup every three years with the Mozzies winning the past two competitions."

So AFL exists in PNG largely due to historic reasons (that it was literally once an Australian territory). It's not replicable as there is only one other location in the world that is also a former Australian territory (Nauru), which is also dominated by AFL. There's also an small but meaningful existing presence in NZ, too, due to similar cultures. It's not replicable around the world, because there are literally no other countries that are former Australian territories.

Aussie rules is also dying in both PNG and Nauru. Aussie Rules was actually a more popular sport in PNG at the time of PNG independence in 1975, but Rugby League has grown and dominated since. And Rugby Union/Sevens has been the code of choice in Nauru in recent years with former national team players in the small country code-switching after some small investment by World Rugby (bigger than the AFL's investment) to play in local tournaments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru_national_rugby_sevens_team

 

[threenewpadlocks]

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.

It's hardly creating a dent in the pathway though.

Home and Away competition fixtures | PlayHQ

View U16 Boys International Tri-Series fixture and ladder for the AFL Cairns Juniors 2024 season

www.playhq.com

The PNG U16 team lost all of their matches against Cairns A, Cairns B and Cape York U16 teams.

The fact that Hewago Oea (and to a lesser extent Gideon Simon), a positive story that they are, have added the "pathways" is minute to be meaningless.

The AFL would arguably get more talented players in their pathways by investing in the 18,000, primarily Rugby-League loving population of Cape York, shown by the fact that their U16 team defeated the U16 team of PNG.

 

[RedV3x]

Many of these teams have not functionally had a team since the last Australian-based IC in 2017. Including them in supposed World Rankings is a bit pointless when they potentially haven't been active for 7 years.

Well that's Covid for you. It's all about to change before December with
Transatlantic Cup Canada, Colombia, USA, Great Britain, France and Ireland
Pacific Cup Fiji, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Tonga, Vanuatu, South Africa
Asia Cup Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam

So they were able to get 25 locals to come to Australia, doesn't prove anything.

But the thousands coming to australia do.

Just that there's 500 active locals playing the game overseas, which I've conceded.

The official figure is 100,000 people play Australian Football overseas.

The AFL German

AFL Germany has expanded from a national league to regional leagues and to metro leagues in some cases
.

Many of these 500 players

Many of these 100,000 players !

As I have said before, I have travelled and umpired AFL in many countries
and I take note of who's playing and I try and ask as many players what attracted them to the game.
There are many reasons. Maybe if you go to International board i can further the discussion.

How many of the USAFL's clubs were founded or functionally developed by an non-Australian?

W.R.T. development blessed be what works.

It's not organic growth outside of just the Australian expat community

In some places in wonder if we've lost the "Australian" in Australian football with a foreign takeover.

So AFL exists in PNG largely due to historic reasons

Yes, post WWII, Australian football became PNG's game.

It's not replicable

I'd argue that.You've given examples.

There's also an small but meaningful existing presence in NZ,

Yes, that was going admirably untill Covid came along.

 

[RedV3x]

It's hardly creating a dent in the pathway though.

So now we're arguing about degree.
First there was no pathway, then a respectable number of PNG players found their way to state leagues
and now and handful are making it to the AFL.

I'd say that was case for celebration rather then looking at dents wouldn't you say.