New Zealand national Australian rules football team
| New Zealand Hawks | |
|---|---|
| Names | |
| Nickname(s) | Hawks |
| 2014 season | |
| Club details | |
| Colours | Silver, black |
| Competition | International Cup |
| Coach | Justin Davies |
| Captain(s) | Andrew Howieson |
| Ground(s) | Westpac Stadium, Wellington, New Zealand |
| Hutt Park, Lower Hutt, New Zealand | |
| Other information | |
| Official website | aflnz.co.nz/ |
The New Zealand national Australian rules football team nicknamed the Hawks, is the national team for the sport of Australian rules football in New Zealand. The team is selected from the best New Zealand born and developed players, primarily from the clubs of the New Zealand AFL. New Zealand-born players in the Australian Football League are not considered for selection. The team mainly plays only for the purposes of the Australian Football International Cup, and won the tournament in 2005.
The NZ Hawks wear a distinctive silver and black ADIDAS uniform which consists of a guernsey (singlet), shorts and socks. The guernsey contains New Zealand's silver fern and the Hawks logo. Before every match, similar to the all blacks, the NZ Hawks will perform a haka.
The Hawks 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 2002 Australian Football International Cup 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, 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.
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