TONY Woods, the AFL's International Manager, has further assisted international and multicultural communities by visiting the Southern Dragons Football Club.

The team playing in division 3 of the Southern Football League has quite an interesting story with 95% of the team made up of players from all over the world (Vietnam, China, Cambodia, Philippines, Japan, Greece, Italy, India, Pakistan to name a few). 

The club has three teams: a seniors, reserves and club under 18s With names like Nguyen, Do, Tang, Rueda, Zimlinsky, Khan, Voung and Tran, it is only a matter of time until we see the next multicultural player in the AFL.

Woods took the two hour training session with a strong emphasis on "taking on the opportunity and not wasting any chances to improve", especially with finals football to be played on Sunday 29th of August at Clayton Reserve.

The night was finished off with some inspirational words from Woods stating four key points to lead into finals week: Opportunity, Objective, Mental Approach and Execution. Something he stated he took into every game at AFL level.

Dragons President Tri Thoi said he was proud of the group with the clubs second finals berth in their three year existence.

With a game to be played in Shanghai this year between Melbourne and the Brisbane Lions, the interest of Australian Football internationally is rapidly growing.

Many of the Dragons players will look on with interest with the AFL playing their first game in their home country.

The AFL Multicultural Program is a joint initiative between the Australian Football League, AFL Victoria, AFL Clubs (Collingwood, Western Bulldogs, Essendon, Hawthorn, Richmond & Carlton) and the Victorian Government.