page_title: Samoa national Australian rules football team
hierarchical_section_title: Samoa national Australian rules football team
caption_attribution_description: English: Samoan team line up for the national anthem at the 2008 International Cup
context_page_description: The Samoan national Australian rules football team and represents Samoa in the team sport of Australian rules football. The team is selected from the best Samoan born players, who are currently mostly players from the Samoa Australian Rules Football Association.
  Samoa debuted internationally at the Arafura Games in 1999, where the team won the Bronze medal.
  Between 1999 and 2002, Samoa played the occasional test match against other countries, most of them with loose eligibility rules, allowing Melbourne based Samoan players to participate.
  Samoa competed against Nauru in 2001 during Nauru's tour of Australia. Among the Samoan representatives was a young Aaron Edwards.
  Samoa sent a team to the inaugural 2002 Australian Football International Cup. The International Cup nation team was nicknamed the "Bulldogs" and wore the colours of the Western Bulldogs which happen to be the same colours as the Flag of Samoa. Samoa finished 7th overall in the cup.
  In 2004, Samoa fielded a side in the Australian Football Multicultural Cup and made it all the way through to the Grand Final, but were solidly defeated by Israel.
context_section_description: The Samoan national Australian rules football team and represents Samoa in the team sport of Australian rules football.  The team is selected from the best Samoan born players, who are currently mostly players from the Samoa Australian Rules Football Association.
  Samoa debuted internationally at the Arafura Games in 1999, where the team won the Bronze medal.
  Between 1999 and 2002, Samoa played the occasional test match against other countries, most of them with loose eligibility rules, allowing Melbourne based Samoan players to participate.
  Samoa competed against Nauru in 2001 during Nauru's tour of Australia.  Among the Samoan representatives was a young Aaron Edwards.
  Samoa sent a team to the inaugural 2002 Australian Football International Cup.  The International Cup nation team was nicknamed the "Bulldogs" and wore the colours of the Western Bulldogs (who had donated the jumpers) which happen to be the same colours as the Flag of Samoa.  Samoa finished 7th overall in the cup.
  In 2004, Samoa fielded a side in the Australian Football Multicultural Cup and made it all the way through to the Grand Final, but were solidly defeated by Israel.
  A much improved Samoa attended the 2005 International Cup, finishing in 5th position overall.  Samoan players Fia Tootoo and Mateta Kirisome were selected in the International Cup All-Star team.  Among the Samoan squad were future rugby internationals Mikaele Pesamino and Rambo Tavana.
  The team appeared at the 2008 International Cup, but their nickname was changed to the "Kangaroos" and they now wear a similar strip to the North Melbourne Football Club.  The affiliation with the Kangaroos came through the rise of Aaron Edwards in AFL's ranks, becoming a power forward and taking one of the best marks of the year for the Kangaroos in the 2007 AFL Finals Series.  The Samoan-born North Melbourne star attended most of the games involving Samoa in person during the 2008 cup, although he was not allowed to represent Samoa under the AFL International Cup criteria.  While Samoa began the cup with a strong win over India, Samoa's 2008 cup hopes were dashed after a drubbing at the hands of the Japan Samurai before being solidly defeated by the New Zealand Falcons.
  The team performs the Siva tau (war dance) before each game.
caption: Samoans line up for the national anthem at the 2008 Australian Football International Cup.
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-FZ5", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2008:08:29 01:10:33", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "418", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "6804", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8747", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:08:29 01:10:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:08:29 01:10:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "173/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "971", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "469", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "6652", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "104", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal"}