Home of the Central Blues Australian Football Club

Salutations to you sad excuses for living organisms. Blue Beetle here. Now before I get started on this week's Beetle Wrap I wanted to address the issue of my identity. I raise this issue only because I've received an obscene amount of mail asking about my true identity. For some reason there's a guy running around saying that he's behind my reports. Well for those who think Dan Garret is my supposed true identity, think again. I don't even think he's a registered member with the Central Blues is he? Regardless if he feels the need to claim the credit of my work then so be it. It does not effect me in any way. I don't do this for the fame - I do this, well because I can. Here are my thoughts on last weekend's Ontario Australian Football League action.

Well that was a quick turnaround, this OAFL Stuporhero caper is definitely not all it's cut out to be. In fact I've forgotten why I'm even here! What do I care what the OAFL bloggers are saying?? Although the World XVIII diaries kept by the two OAFL players (John Elliot and Riyad Karacic) have been very very good. Check them out HERE. These kids are living a once in a lifetime opportunity in being a part of the first ever "world team" that will compete in the AFL Under 16 Championships. Seriously, I don't see any "ultimate" frisbee players being sponsored by their league and major governing body to be flown to the other side of the world to play "ultimate" frisbee... What sort of sport calls itself "ultimate frisbee" anyways?!?!? Aussie Rules is bad enough in terms of looking at it from an international markeing point of view. But that's a whole other argument. But back to these two youngsters, they are receiving world class coaching using all the available tools used by the AFL clubs in Australia. Imagine having a guy like Michael O'Loughlin (who was a superstar with the Sydney Swans) as your coach?! Amazing. Much like the Eagles Aaron Falcioni who trained and played a season in Australia - these two youngsters will have a huge advantage over other Canadian players with the insights into the Australian game that they will receive during this AFL experiment. The Etobicoke footy club has done a top notch job in developing these kids already and will be reaping the benefits of their ongoing support well into the future I'm sure.

There's been plenty of talk about our Australian players this season, about how much we rely on them and how they are scoring the bulk of our goals yada yada yada. We'll cop that, because we know that if these Aussies were playing for another club and they were winning the games then it would be that club that's receiving this sort of criticism. Sure we have some of the best Aussies going around including the likes of 2010 recruits Lombardozzi, Goedheer, McConville-Brain, Booth and Dunne who all obviously been great players for us.

But last weekends game against the Rebels was a good example of what our club is capable of without the bulk of those fellas (Shorty or as they call him on the OAFL blog "Match Payments" did kick 10 goals - earning every cent of his imaginary game day pay) PLUS arguably the Blues best Canadian player in Kien La missing from our line up. But I'm not here to harp on about our Australian players. I'm here to talk about developing Canadians and using Canadians as the main driving force of our league. I believe the league and it's team of writers could be doing so much more to promote the Canadians in the competition. They should be the prime stars of the league.