SCHEDULE ANNOUNCEMENT – NEW DIVISIONAL FORMAT

Due to the increase in team numbers and anticipated increases in future year, the IAFL has adopted a divisional format for the 2007 season. Each of the 9 teams will play in one of 3 divisions as follows:

IAFL North: Belfast Bulls, Belfast Trojans, Carrickfergus Knights.

IAFL Central: DCU Saints, Dublin Dragons, Dublin Rebels.

IAFL South: Cork Admirals, Univ Limerick Vikings, Tallaght Outlaws.

The IAFL wants to add a 4th team to each of the three divisions in 2008 – candidates are Craigavon, Galway, Midlands & South East.

Each team will play 8 regular season games between March and end June/start July. Play-offs will take place in July with the Championship game – Shamrock Bowl XXI on Sunday July 29th. They will play each team in their Division twice and 4 of the other 6 teams once. The 3 Division winners along with 2 wildcard teams will qualify for the play-offs.

The duration of the season has been shortened by approximately 1 month as, due to larger squad sizes, teams are able to play competitive games more frequently. The number of games played by each team is the same and the total number of games played in the league has increased due to the addition of a ninth team – the most that has ever contested a season in Ireland.

Seven of the eight teams who played last season are returning. Two new teams have been added, thus increasing the number to nine. The addition of the Belfast Trojans creates a new cross town rivalry in that city. The Tallaght Outlaws, who become the first Tallaght based team to play competitively in more than a decade, are the other new team. The defunct North Dublin Marshals are no longer IAFL members due to their failure to comply with league standards.

Most teams will kick-off their regular season over the weekend of March 25th. The new College Championship game (played earlier in March) contested between the two university based teams will also count towards the IAFL standings. Defending Champions, the Dublin Rebels, will kick off the first weekend of regular season games against the DCU Saints. Kick-off times and venues for all IAFL games will be confirmed later this month.

Wk	Date	Away Team	@	Home Team
0	Mar 4th	U.L. Vikings	@	DCU Saints
	Mar 11th
	Mar 18th	Coventry Jets	@	Team Ireland
1	Mar 25th	DCU Saints	@	Dublin Rebels
		Tallaght Outlaws	@	U.L. Vikings
		Cork Admirals	@	Belfast Bulls
2	Apr 1st	Dublin Dragons	@	UL Vikings
		Belfast Trojans	@	Belfast Bulls
		Carrickfergus Knights	@	Tallaght Outlaws
	Apr 8th	Easter
3	Apr 15th	Cork Admirals	@	UL Vikings
		Tallaght Outlaws	@	Belfast Trojans
		Dublin Dragons	@	DCU Saints
4	Apr 22nd	Belfast Bulls	@	UL Vikings
		Dublin Dragons	@	Carrickfergus Knights
		Dublin Rebels	@	Belfast Trojans
5	Apr 29th	UL Vikings	@	Tallaght Outlaws
		Cork Admirals	@	Dublin Rebels
		Carrickfergus Knights	@	DCU Saints
6	May 6th	Dublin Rebels	@	DCU Saints
		UL Vikings	@	Cork Admirals
		Belfast Bulls	@	Carrickfergus Knights
	May 13th	Break
	May 20th	Break
7	May 27th	Dublin Rebels	@	Dublin Dragons
		Belfast Bulls	@	Belfast Trojans
		UL Vikings	@	Carrickfergus Knights
8	Jun 3rd	Cork Admirals	@	Tallaght Outlaws
		Belfast Trojans	@	Dublin Dragons
9	Jun 10th	DCU Saints	@	Cork Admirals
		Carrickfergus Knights	@	Belfast Bulls
		Tallaght Outlaws	@	Dublin Dragons
10	Jun 17th	Belfast Trojans	@	Cork Admirals
		Dublin Rebels	@	Tallaght Outlaws
		DCU Saints	@	Belfast Bulls
11	Jun 24th	DCU Saints	@	Dublin Dragons
		Befast Trojans	@	Carrickfergus Knights
		Belfast Bulls	@	Dublin Rebels
12	Jul 1st	Dublin Dragons	@	Dublin Rebels
		Carrickfergus Knights	@	Belfast Trojans
		Tallaght Outlaws	@	Cork Admirals
WC	Jul 8th	Wildcard #2	@	Wildcard #1
Semi	Jul 15th	Winner #3	@	Winner #2
		Wildcard Winner	@	Winner #1
	Jul 22nd	Break
Final	Jul 29th	Shamrock Bowl XXI

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 6th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under IAFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.