Its fair to say to take two teams half way across the world there are always things that might prevent those teams from performing at their best. The Freedom and Revos can be pleased with their efforts in the 2011 International Cup in Melbourne Australia in August considering all they have to go through to get there. The tournament now becoming a staple every three years certainly shows how the game is growing around the world and there are obvious improvements in most teams on each visit.
For the USA teams it is bitter sweet perhaps. The women's Freedom team certainly were up against many obstacles to perform well. Having rarely played together the team came together with small camp sessions and a lot of email chatter, hardly ideal for a USA representative team. But that's the nature of the sport here. We live in a huge country and teams are spread all over it. The USA Freedom despite half the team playing in their first international matches and representing the USA for the first time, can be pleased with their third place behind the Canadians and Ireland. One can ask why were those two team better? Well we can use one basic thought, many of their players play together on a regular basis. The Canadians core come from teams based out of Calgary were the game has flourished. The Irish from what we hear came from the Shamrocks an Irish expat team in Sydney that plays both Gaelic and Aussie Rules codes.
What the Freedom team needs to do to show improvement in three years time is build their ranks and their funding to allow greater depth of talent to show a bigger hand.
The Revos being more experienced in these internationals also should be pleased with their outcome of fourth. They face similar logistic nightmares as the women in trying to train and play together as a team. Whats noticeable perhaps is the team is getting a lot younger and faster each International Cup campaign. As the game recruiting is still from the top down in the US, meaning more older players are recruited before younger players as there are very few junior programs functioning in the country, it will take time. Perhaps in 2014 the Revos will rock up with 20 guys under 25, that would be nice but we seriously doubt it just yet.
So congratulationss to both teams. Some great highlights for both teams and many players but the overall performance of both teams was outstanding.
You can find more info on the tournament on the AFL website here.
