Closed door could lead to 'open slather'

On Gaelic Games:Maybe the timing wasn't great in the week that reports of yet another talented young footballer, in this case Mayo's Pierce Hanley, headed to Australia. Otherwise though it's hard to quibble with the comments of Tadhg Kennelly on the implications of the International Rules stand-off for recruitment of footballers by AFL clubs.

Kennelly was simply echoing observations by his coach at Sydney Swans, Paul Roos, to the effect that Ireland would be seen as a major prospecting region for Australian Rules should official relations between the AFL and GAA break down.

"The more (Irish) success there is here the more the drive is going to be to get that extra player from Ireland," said Kennelly. "It could be a big issue. It could become a big, big problem if you had 16 clubs doing it every year. It hasn't come to that yet . . . it's hard to say. It depends if the success rate of players coming out here continues.

"Now the relationship's gone a bit sour over the International Rules, it's going to give clubs here open slather (the phrase meaning 'open season' coincidentally used in a more ominous context by Australia's Lindsay Gilbee in describing how his team would approach last November's scabrous second Test). It's sad and you just wonder what the GAA can do to stop it."

This renewed interest in Ireland as a recruiting resource has been triggered by the success of former Down minor Martin Clarke, who at 19 and within a year of being snapped up by Collingwood, has made a major impression in his first handful of AFL matches.

This follows the extraordinary progress made last year by Laois's Colm Begley in making his AFL debut well within a year of going out to the Brisbane Lions and little more than 12 months after playing for Laois in a Leinster final.

Whereas it's by no means guaranteed that young players can effect that sort of transition in so short a space of time there is evidence that Irish recruits are settling in a lot more quickly than they used to.

Croke Park's Head of Games Pat Daly believes this has come about because of two main factors: the improved quality of coaching within the GAA over the past 10 to 15 years and what Clarke's coach at Collingwood, Mick Malthouse, has referred to as the "Gaelicisation" of Australian Rules.

The first factor has made Irish footballers much better equipped technically and therefore more adaptable whereas the second means that there's less adaptation needed.

Compared to where the Australian game was 10 years ago just before the resumption of the International Rules series, it now places more emphasis on player movement and possession and less emphasis on physical confrontation and aerial contests.

There's probably another reason and that's the evolution of elite player preparation in recent years.

To be a top intercounty footballer nowadays means a level of commitment that can only sharpen curiosity about the possibilities of a professional sports career.

As Kennelly said, there's not much the GAA can do about this. An amateur organisation can't stand in the way of members pursuing whatever careers they want although it's frustrating to be effectively rearing players for export.

International Rules isn't strictly essential to maintaining links between the GAA and AFL but it's the most reliable way of ensuring regular interaction and co-operation. That's how restrictions on recruitment by AFL clubs in Ireland were formulated two years ago so it's not unreasonable to speculate that should the connection be broken, it will indeed be "open slather".

The international game is in abeyance this year but indications are that it will be given a stool in the last-chance saloon next year, particularly as it will be the AFL's 150th anniversary.

There were supposed to be talks on resuming the series between the organisations last month but they were called off (for practical rather than diplomatic reasons) and will take place instead within the next month or two.

The question is to what extent there's any point in resurrecting the whole project aside from a perceived need to stem AFL recruitment. The discipline issue has been to the forefront of the reactions to International Rules but it's simply a matter of enforcement. Players get up to what they can get away with - just as they do in football and Australian Rules - and once that is addressed the problem is solved.

What won't go away as easily is the strong evidence that the Australians have rendered the game redundant.

Under the coaching of Kevin Sheedy the AFL teams have become more custom-built for the international series and more adept at using the round ball and the result has been Ireland's inability to compete.

(Coincidentally Sheedy has had an eventful time since stepping down as international coach - being released last month by his club Essendon after 27 years in charge and then this week being appointed official ambassador of the AFL sesquicentenary celebrations.)

Ironically one of the reasons for this happening is that Gaelic football has evolved this decade into a running and possession-orientated game to the eclipse of the more traditional transfer patterns, notwithstanding the tactical success of Kerry last season.

Sheedy's starting point for the preparation of his first team in 2005 was detailed study of Tyrone's All-Ireland final defeat of Kerry - and that was how the Australians played. In terms of fitness and conditioning GAA teams are in no position to take on the Australians in a game in which the emphasis on possession ensures frequently carrying the ball into the risk of contact. This has depressed attitudes to the game within the GAA and it's probably no coincidence the outraged plug-pulling last year has happened at the same time as Ireland's decline as a competitive force.

It would be a pity were the series to die because it has provided a great outlet for players' representative ambitions and for the first five or six years exciting matches with tight and evenly balanced results.

If the GAA prioritise improving performance at international level the game might have a probationary future. But being sustained on life support simply to thwart the ambitions of young sportsmen would be the final indignity for the series.