Talk:Australian Football International Cup
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] Australia not competing ?
Is there any way we could find out any more detail why Australia has not ben playing in the competition so far?
- Australia doesn't compete because the game is widely played professionally here and most senior players have played since junior levels. Of the few countries where juniors have graduated to senior level (ie. PNG, Denmark, Nauru, South Africa and New Zealand), their national teams have proven to have been defeated easily by amateur Australian clubs. Both PNG and New Zealand now have comparable participation numbers (10-20,000) matching the smaller Australian states, but these are at junior level. At senior level in 2005/06 they graduated from club to country level participation at various Country Championships which is a big step, but both are regularly thrashed at this level at the moment. Seriously though, the gap at senior level is huge. A better gauge would be the Barassi International Australian Football Youth Tournament where the Australian Capital Territory plays the likes of PNG, South Africa and New Zealand at junior level. I wouldn't expect Australia to be able to able to compete at senior level for at least another 20 years, but at state level it may be as little as 10 years. For the women's team probably within the next 3-5 years, because the headstart is not so large. --Spewmaster 01:49, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
To be more thorough, the Aussie women's team may find an opponent in the US or PNG in the next few years, but women's footy programs overseas are still very much behind the mens programs (which are still very much in the developing phase). 40010 03:14, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
