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 Both the Atlanta Kookaburras and Lady Kookaburras are gearing up for a big weekend of footy at the USAFL National Championships in Louisville Kentucky next weekend October 13-14th. The Kooka teams will join 30 others from around the country all trying to secure that ellusive National Championship trophy. The men's Kookaburra team have been rewarded for their improved season this year with a berth in Div 2 of the championships and will play preliminary pool games against the Minnesota Freeze and old foes the Nashville Kangaroos and Nth Carolina Tigers.
The Lady Kookaburras will be playing to win their third National title in a row by playing the Milwaukee Lady Bombers, Arizona Lady Hawks and a combined team from Balt/Washington & Calgary Canada. The Lady Kookaburras will be led by Judith Stein and will be looking forward to the return of Jenny Sarbacker after her injury playing for the USA team in Vancouver.
The National Championships will be a huge celebration of footy this year with special guests of former Essendon coach Kevin Sheedy and Carltons full back of the century Stephen Silvagni. The USAFL is celebrating ten years of footy in the US and will also announce their first life members, hall of fame entrants and members of a "10 year anniversary" team. Looking at the pool games for the men's team Minnesota will certainly be the team to beat being runners up in the same Div in 2006 they have continued to move forward with several big wins this year. Nth Carolina have been playing in the EAFL the past few years and have a had less then successful year this year. In two previous championships they were in Div 1 so cannot be taken lightly. The third team the Kookas will face in pool games is the Nashville Kangaroos who are the Kookaburras oldest and fierest rivals with many clashes over the past 9 years. The Kangaroos have had a solid year this year and certainly are going to be tough to beat. On the other side of the draw there are teams like Milwaukee, Seattle, Calgary and Philadelphia all of which are hard to line up as none have played each other in recent times. Milwaukee with the return of the Brunmier brothers from West Perth in Australia are certainly the team to watch there. The women's division has four stronger teams this year and big blow out scores are likely to be a thing of the past. The Lady Kookaburras can be confident they have earned their #1 seeding however need not be complacent. The Lady Kookas seemed to have had the best of the Milwaukee team in recent games but look for an improved effort from Arizona after four of their players excelled for the USA team in Vancouver in August. The BW/Calgary team will be the unknown and could quite easily be the main challenge for the Kookaburrass during the weekend. Coming from a large base of the national Canadian team in Calgary and from many current Gaelic players in the Balt/Washington area they are definitely the "smokeys" in the group. |
