Osler selected for AFL’s Anzac Cup

Former Longwarry, Warragul and Nyora footballer Brett Osler will represent Australia in AFL Europe's Anzac Cup on Sunday.
Osler, who grew up in West Gippsland but recently relocated to Poland, will represent Australia Spirit in the AFL game against the French national team, the Coqs, at Villers-Bretonneux. He is the first Australian Spirit member to be selected from Poland.
Osler was a champion junior footballer, having won the Ellinbank and District Football League's Arthur Pollard Memorial Award for the best under 18 player in the seniors with Longwarry Football Club back in 1996.
In 1995, while playing football for Warragul, he represented West Gippsland Football League in the under 17 interleague team and followed that up with selection in the EDFL senior interleague team in 1998 whilst playing for Nyora.
His brother Nathan Osler was a multiple century goal kicker and premiership player for Nyora.
"It is an absolute honour to be the first Australian Spirit member selected from Poland, especially with Australia and Poland celebrating the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations in 2022", Osler said.
"The privilege does not get much higher than to represent your home country, nor more personal than to represent one's family members who served as Anzacs. Here I get to do both."
Osler will be honouring Anzacs in his family who served in Australian defence forces, especially those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and are buried on lands across Europe and Asia or commemorated at sites such as the Australian War Memorial in Villers-Bretonneux.
"I will be honouring the many family members that have served, the more than 10,000 Anzacs commemorated at Villers-Bretonneux as well as those who came from the sporting clubs I have been associated with and those who are buried across Poland at sites such as the Rakowicki Military Cemetery here in Krakow", Osler said. "This includes squadron leader John Liversidge who was aboard the Liberator B-24 Bomber that crashed either side of the Vistula River in Krakow, warrant officer Murray Baxter, himself a handy cricketer and footballer before the war, and a close family friend's great uncle, private John McArthur."
Osler, AFL Krakow founder, has been living in Poland since July 2021 after spending over 500 days apart from his Polish partner.
The pair met in Krakow in 2019 when Osler was travelling to Cyprus for medical treatment to stabilise medical conditions he has battled since 2014 resulting from a tick bite in Brazil's Amazon when attending the FIFA World Cup.
"Being apart from my partner, family and friends, for such a long period of time has truly given me a sense of just one aspect of what Anzacs who served in prior extended conflicts went through", Osler said.
Since recovering from COVID at the start of March, he has started volunteering with the Krakow Multicultural Centre to assist people displaced from the war in Ukraine.
The centre is currently assisting about 300 people and Osler said it was amazing to see the galvanising of Poland and Ukraine, how people of all languages and backgrounds can come together, and appreciation of the role sport can play for the mental and physical health of those fleeing.
He has also started running Auskick sessions to introduce children and their parents to AFL, and hopes to continue this work upon his return from France.