Getting Ready For The Bounce That Will Be Heard Around The World

The Age

Tuesday August 26, 2008

Lyall Johnson

IT'S not usual that aspiring AFL footballers wear their failings as a badge of honour, but when it involves coming off second-best to the Brownlow medallist, well, it's kind of like a royalist being bowled over by Prince Charles on his polo horse.

For Finland's Fredrik Romar and Denmark's Pall Finnsson, their meeting with Jimmy Bartel last year, when the Geelong star was in Scandinavia to visit his girlfriend, was just that.

While there, Bartel played a game against the Helsinki Heatseekers, for whom Romar is a regular, and another in Denmark against Finnsson's Jylland side.

AFL novices they may be but with the competitive juices flowing, they decided to try and match it with Bartel.

"When Jimmy Bartel came to Finland last year, I actually managed to touch him during a game. The trouble was he put me on my face faster than I could say hello. That was a good moment," said Romar yesterday at the launch of the AFL's 2008 International Cup, which starts on Wednesday in Royal Park.

"That was in Helsinki, he came over and played one of our first league games against the Helsinki Heatseekers for the Salo Juggernauts. They are a smaller team and he led them on to their first victory. I chased him down and he stopped. I managed to get my hand on him but like I said, suddenly I was on my face. I don't even know how he did it!"

Finnsson has a similar tale. "I played with him just after he won the Brownlow. I tried to pump him, too, I ran into him with all I had and he just didn't move at all. He's not much taller than me but it was like running into a brick wall," Finnsson said.

Sixteen nations, six more than in 2005, have arrived in Melbourne to play in the tournament, which will be staged between Melbourne and Warrnambool. The 2005 winner, New Zealand, and runner-up, Papua New Guinea, are favourites, with Samoa, the US, Canada and Ireland expected to be tough competitors.

The AFL is keen to show how the game has grown in other nations, the 40,000 participants across the world are expected to be 100,000 in the next five to 10 years. From that position, the AFL hopes a player will emerge good enough to join an AFL club.

Three PNG players - John James, Stanis Suseve and Donald Barry - are some of the closest to that level as they play in the Queensland Football League.

Given they don't grow up with the game, overseas players become attracted to AFL for various reasons. Mainly it is the game's physical nature, with the rules, tactics and style of play providing more interesting combat than soccer but a somewhat safer alternative to rugby.

The Americans and Canadians, for instance, have found there is little amateur competitive contact sport to play once they leave high school or college.

"We're pulling older guys 25 to 35 years old. Most guys, once they are done with high school or college, there's not a lot of sports with contact and some running, so it's a good blend," said Donnie Lucero of the USA Revolution.

For Mtutuzeli Hlomela of South Africa, it was a case of misunderstanding an advertisement inviting people to play football. It didn't worry him much, he was so good, despite being only 167 centimetres. In the end, he won an AFL scholarship that led him to Sturt in the SANFL, where he played reserves in 1998.

Detractors of AFL football have been heard to say that it's "not rocket science", but Romar wishes it was. "We have got lots of different professions, starting from students like me to a rocket scientist. The rocket scientist is Juha Nieminen, No. 13, he's a smart guy, so he reads the play really well, which could be good for us," he joked.

THE TEAMS

Australian Football

International Cup

Teams: Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, Great Britain, India, Ireland, Japan, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peace Team (Israel and Palestine), Samoa, South Africa, Sweden, US.

Held: August 27-September 6.

Royal Park North and Warrnambool

© 2008 The Age

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