One thing you learn quickly about the teams who travelled to Australia for the AFL International Cup is that it isn’t as easy as just turning up for a game each week.
International AFL teams are few and far between and lots of travelling time is all part of the journey for players.
There are only three teams in Indonesia and they face a two hour flight to play each other.
For the French, the journey is an average 400-500 kilometres.
In South Africa, playing one game could mean a 26-hour bus trip in each direction.
But what all the teams have in common is a love for our great game. And footy fans get the chance to see them in action on local grounds.
Indonesia and France will face each other at Diggers Rest before the Riddell District Football League match between Diggers Rest and Rupertswood on Saturday.
Both RDFL teams put their hands up to host an International Cup match.
Rupo wanted the South African team to be involved because of a relationship already established.
The South Africans visited the club on Thursday.
“These guys are one of the most unusual groups of teams coming out here,” Rupo president Paul Ross said.
“A couple of their players have been murdered in the last 12 months.
“It brings back to us that football is only a sport. For them it’s a release. Some struggle to find enough food.
“We have donated water bottles and oranges for their games and one of our sponsors, Sunbury Bus Lines, helped bring them to Sunbury. They’re on a shoestring budget.”
For the Indonesians, most players had never left their home country let alone experienced something of this magnitude.
“It’s an amazing lifetime experience for these boys,” said Dean Reardon, an Australian who formed Borneo Bears, one of the three Indonesian teams.
“You can’t imagine the conditions they’re in every day. This gives them a profile and there has been a lot of media coverage.”
Reardon said the team started after many expats spent several nights a week kicking around a football.
“A lot of the guys started bringing their staff members and friends to come and play,” he said.
“Once the mining and gas industry dried up we lost a lot of our expats – we now have half a dozen expats and the rest are from Indonesia.”
More than 100 players put their hands up to be part of the team.
“Skill-wise, we have played only one game together, on much smaller grounds, and this is the first team we have sent to the cup,” he said.
“We are a very short team and are a running team.
“I think we will win games by running.”
It’s the second time the French have travelled to Australia for the cup.
“There are 450 players and 10 teams in the league in France,” said France’s Alban Schieber
“All but one of the teams was started by French people, the first after a conversation at 3am between two French guys.”
Schieber learnt AFL while on exchange in Australia after discovering there was no rugby in Mt Gambier. “When I first started I didn’t speak any English and was getting into fights,” he said.
“Now there are more and more people joining to play footy in France.”
South African captain Asanda Funda meets Rupo under-12 captain Lachlan Caldone. Photo: Damjan Janevski
