Out and about, Sheedy still spreads the word

NINE years ago, Rob Sitch's cousin placed an ad in a Copenhagen newspaper. "Homesick Aussie looking for a kick of the Footy." A Dane and a Kiwi answered. Now, Denmark boasts a nine-team Australian football competition, with juniors.

In South Africa, participation numbers have topped 8000, only seven years after Mtutu Hlomela arrived in Adelaide to take up what he thought was a soccer scholarship, only to find himself signed for a version of football he'd never heard of. He stayed the course, took the game home and converted the masses.

In August next year, Hlomela will return to Australia as South Africa's coach, one of the 800 of the 34,000 people playing our game beyond our shores who will contest the 2008 AFL International Cup.

After two rounds of matches at Royal Park, they will board a train for Warrnambool, where the greatest asset in the game's global push, Kevin Sheedy, was spreading the gospel yesterday, imploring the locals to lay out the welcome mat. "One of the greatest criticisms about the game in my life's time is that it's not international," Sheedy told a gathering at Reid Oval.

"But there's no reason why you can't inspire people to be involved in turning our great Australian game into an international game.

"Welcome them, and in 10 years' time, when we're playing a game for AFL premiership points in Mumbai, you can take some of the credit."

Sheedy has made no secrets of his dream for, if not world domination, then at least global recognition for the sport that has been his life's work. As the AFL's 150th anniversary ambassador, he will be heard many times between now and May 10 spruiking the Victoria versus Dream Team match at the MCG, and said yesterday it offered the best opportunity yet to showcase the game internationally. "Imagine giving these 800 or more people who come for the International Cup a disc to take home, to show everyone the best of the best," Sheedy said.

Sixteen nations have committed to next year's tournament, with India expected to come on board soon. Only nationals are eligible, with no expat Australians to play.

As AFL game development manager David Matthews said: "Our eligibility rules are stricter than cricket's World Cup."

Sheedy has just returned from the 10th annual Australian Rules Championships in the US, and saw a standard he likened to D-grade amateurs. He reckons the display from the South African youth team in a curtain-raiser to an Essendon match in Darwin this year "showed we won't be wasting our time here".

"We've got to work now to make sure we don't miss the wave," he said.

- Peter Hanlon
(1040)