New Zealand national Australian rules football team
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The Falcons are New Zealand's national Australian rules football team.
The Falcons players are selected from the best New Zealand born players from the club teams across the country.
The team are the current International champions having won the 2005 International Cup, but considered a distant second to Australia in the sport.
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[edit] Identity
The team is name after the country's only native Falcon species, the New Zealand Falcon or Karearea.
Like the All Blacks NZ national rugby union team, the Falcons perform the Maori ritual wardance, the haka before each game.
Also (like the All Blacks), the team wears an all black guernsey with the silver fern, a national symbol of New Zealand.
[edit] History
The Falcons are the modern version of the team that defeated both New South Wales and Queensland at the Jubilee Australasian Football Carnival. Australian Football was seldom played in New Zealand between 1908 and 1974.
New Zealand was reintroduced to international Australian Football at the Arafura Games in 1995. The team also competed in the 1997 and 1999 games, winning the Silver medal in each year of the competition as runners up to Papua New Guinea.
The team competed in the inaugural Australian Football International Cup in 2002 finishing in 3rd place.
Warming up for the 2005 International Cup, the Falcons played a touring Maffra (from the strong Victorian Country Football League in Gippsland, Victoria, Australia) at Manurewa in New Zealand but were defeated by 70 points[1], dulling expectations of the team's appearance in the next international event, but at the same time displaying the massive disparity between the competitive level of the sport in the two countries.
However with the growing popularity of Aussie Rules in New Zealand, the much improved 2005 New Zealand International Cup side went through the competition undefeated, claiming the title of International Champions by defeating Papua New Guinea in the Grand Final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, effectively claiming the title from previous winners Ireland. The team took most by surprise and no other side was able to come close to winning against them.
The Falcon's best and fairest player (from the 2005 International Cup) is Matthew Callaghan.
Following the overwhelming success of the team's 2005 International Cup appearance, the Falcons were invited to play at the Australian Country Championships in 2006 to be held on the Gold Coast. The qualification rules of this competition are more lenient, and the Falcons were able to play non New Zealand born players to make them competitive against Australian sides from country leagues. The Falcons were not successful at the event, losing heavily to Queensland, by 9 points to Victoria B and by 63 points to the Indigenous All-Stars.[2]
[edit] References
- ^ New Zealand given a football lesson by touring Maffra Eagles by Aaron Richard for worldfootynews.com
- ^ Reality Check for International Footy by Brett Northey for worldfootynews.com
[edit] External links
- New Zealand Representative Falcons page on NZAFL site
- Google Video of Falcons performing the 'Haka' at the 2005 International Cup
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Participants |
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| Governing Body | |
| National Team |
Falcons |
| Major Leagues |
Auckland AFL | Canterbury AFL | Waikato AFL | Wellington AFL |
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