Australian rules football in Ireland

Australian rules football in Ireland is a recently introduced team sport but the country has a long history of interaction with Australian rules leagues.

There has been some awareness of Australian rules football in Ireland since the first International rules football tests took place in late 1967, however Aussie Rules was not officially played in Ireland until clubs were simultaneously formed in Dublin and Belfast in 1999.

The two clubs recruited and trained through the winter and played a number of British clubs in challenge matches in early spring.

The ARFLI was formed in October 2000 after the first ever Irish Grand Final was contested between the Dublin Demons and the Belfast Redbacks.

An Irish National Aussie rules team, drawn from all ARFLI affiliated clubs headed to London between October 6 –15 to take part in the Atlantic Alliance Cup 2001 – a five nations International competition with United States, Canada, Great Britain and Denmark providing the opposition. A final panel of 24 players, whittled down from 60 over a three-month training period made the trip. Ireland, playing their first ever competitive International matches won all their games in the round robin series and went on to record a historical win against Denmark (pre tournament favourites) in the Grand Final. This was a huge achievement for such a young league against teams from leagues that had been established for ten years plus. Darren Fitzpatrick, who now lives in Kilkenny and who previously played Aussie Rules at a professional level with the Western Bulldogs in Australia, coached the team.

In August 2002 the National team attended the Australian Football International Cup (An Amateur World Cup for Nations outside of Australia). The Team went into the competition as third seeds behind Papua New Guinea and New Zealand. The competition was a resounding success for Ireland as they beat Canada, Samoa, USA, South Africa and New Zealand in the group stage and went on to beat PNG in a televised final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. The team which was again coached by Darren Fitzpatrick, was captained by Michael Johnston.

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