Even weather turns on visitors

INTERNATIONAL RULES/Second Test: With the Australians getting blitzed in their own media and - much to their chagrin - even in Ireland, Peter McGrath could be forgiven for feeling resentful at the lack of recognition for a top-class Ireland performance.

The pace, fluency and marksmanship of the home side was as good as has been seen over the 20 years of the international series.

The first-quarter shooting that ran up 29 points and included only one behind was devastating and the 17 overs kicked throughout the 80 minutes were only two fewer than Ireland's total over both of last year's tests.

"Possibly it's an Irish trait," said the Ireland manager at yesterday's media conference for the Coca-Cola International Rules series, "we tend to be guarded in praise of people but those connected with the team were pleased at how we functioned."

How Ireland function tomorrow will depend on how the Australians respond on the field to last week's record defeat. There is no mistaking the sense of grievance the visitors have acquired in the face of hostile media coverage and the surprising level of baiting to which they were subjected in the days since the first Test.

While in Galway Australian players were slagged off in public and "jeered getting a burger".

At yesterday's conference, coach Garry Lyon dismissed the media reaction by saying "talk is cheap. It's what happens out there on Sunday that matters."

Asked did he feel his team had been subjected to "excessive criticism", he replied stoically: "That's in the eye of the beholder. You've got to wear it. I'm aware of the media coverage and I've made sure that the players are as well."

Captain James Hird was more forthright about allegations that his team had been "spineless" and "pathetic".

"Wrong," he said. "We're not. What we have is a desire to win. We haven't come here for a good time. We're trying to win."

Accepting that the Australians are about as wound up as professional sports people could be, the question is what can they do to make an impact. The 36-point deficit is certainly beyond recall but winning tomorrow and forcing Ireland to an aggregate win would count as redemption.

They accepted their shortcomings stemmed from poor use of the ball - inaccurate kicking and the consequent turnovers in possession - and a failure to impose themselves in the tackle. Former Ireland manager John O'Keeffe has made the point that the Australians would be better off moving the ball with fisted rather than kicked passes.

At times during the second and third quarters last week the Australians did manage to find their rhythm and run the ball impressively with trademark deft passing and more urgency in the support play.

Physically, they need to tighten up. Too often last week Irish players managed to ride the tackle, wriggling free and playing away possession while in normal circumstances they would have been stopped in their tracks by an Australian challenge.

For example, Ciarán McDonald was so obviously a playmaker last week that Australia will surely have devised a plan to counter his influence. In general Lyon's team have to be tighter and deny Ireland the sort of space that was ruthlessly exploited last week.

The whole purpose of the tackle is that the imminent collision inhibits Irish players and dilutes the advantage of the round ball. Last week, however, that didn't happen and Mattie Forde took on a couple of defenders when cutting through for his goal - an outrageous display of nerve that would normally have come to an abrupt end.

The extent to which the physical exchanges might intensify has become the subject of lurid anticipation. Whether tomorrow's Test turns into Gangs of New York remains to be seen but it's unlikely. Crazed violence hasn't been a feature of the international game for two decades and was purged from Australian Rules a long time ago.

So the response may be energetic - "as physical as we can be within the rules," according to Hird - but it will also be disciplined. Of course Ireland aren't just going to make it easy. As one Australian player replied in a radio interview back home, when asked why he hadn't flattened more opponents, "you have to catch them first".

Ireland's success in evading tackles and absorbing them was one of the most significant elements of last week's triumph. The speed and precision of the home side's movement took Australia by surprise.

Off the field, the main concern for the GAA and AFL will be the attendance. Yet again the unfortunate game is threatened with deluge but unlike previous years there is little suspense about the series' outcome. In the circumstances the optimistic noises during the week, projecting crowds of between 50,000 and 60,000, may be drowned in a downpour.

The GAA would be thrilled with anything around 54,000 for the simple reason that it would mean a series total of 100,000 spectators - the now accepted benchmark for a successful series.

It's ironic at a time when interest in the game is at a high in Australia (admittedly not for entirely positive reasons), that the Irish response threatens to be so lukewarm. But the combination of Bank Holiday weekend, foul weather and effectively a dead rubber makes that understandable.

It was noticed in Australia that the crowd last Sunday looked so sparse despite being a first-Test record for Ireland. It's one of the reasons the idea of a fixture outside of Dublin was mooted - so that the traditionally smaller attendance on the first day would still fill the ground.

But there are problems with the GAA's infrastructure. Unlike the AFL, which has a number of smaller-scale stadiums such as in Adelaide and Perth where the facilities are as good as the MCG's, the secondary grounds in Ireland bear no resemblance to Croke Park.

It has been privately acknowledged that one of the reasons the concept of moving the first Test was dropped was the AFL's verdict that the player facilities at the grounds they saw were inadequate. Whereas this isn't too surprising, the fact that no venues have sought to redevelop their dressing-room complexes in the light of Croke Park's example needs to be addressed.

Importantly for the future of the game in Ireland, there have been signs that new players are finding their feet at this level.

Some of the veterans, Seán Martin Lockhart, Ciarán McManus and Pádraic Joyce, remain in fine fettle but finally a new generation of international footballers has grown up to replace the successful pioneers who emerged with the resumption of the international series in 1998.

Graham Canty's excellence has been well acknowledged with two Irish Player-of-the-Series awards but others, who are relatively new (in their second series) like Benny Coulter and Tom Kelly have emerged as substantial performers. And Stephen Cluxton again demonstrated why he's considered Ireland's best International Rules goalkeeper of the past six years.

Tomorrow Ireland need to finish what was so spectacularly started last week. Failure to achieve a 2-0 series win would be a source of regret. But it would also qualify a little last week's glorious exhibition by affirming one of the game's more popular theories: that when they're fully tuned in, Australia can't be beaten.

That theory, however, stands to be debunked until next year at the earliest.

IRELAND: 1 Stephen Cluxton (Dublin) 2 Joe Bergin (Galway) 3 Alan Brogan (Dublin) 4 Eoin Brosnan (Kerry) 5 Declan Browne (Tipperary) 6 Graham Canty (Cork) 7 Seán Cavanagh (Tyrone) 8 Brendan Coulter (Down) 9 Bryan Cullen (Dublin) 10 Dessie Dolan (Westmeath) 11 Mattie Forde (Wexford) 12 Paul Galvin (Kerry) 13 David Heaney (Mayo) 14 Pádraic Joyce (Galway) 15 Tom Kelly (Laois) 16 Tadhg Kennelly (Kerry/Sydney Swans) 17 Seán Martin Lockhart (Derry) 18 Philip Loughran (Armagh) 19 Ciarán McDonald (Mayo) 21 Martin McGrath (Fermanagh) 22 Ciarán McManus (Offaly) 23 Brian McGuigan (Tyrone) 24 James Nallen (Mayo) 25 Seán Ó hAilpín (Cork) 26 Setanta Ó hAilpín (Cork/Carlton).

AUSTRALIA: 15 Mal Michael (Brisbane Lions) 2 Nathan Brown (Richmond) 3 Brady Rawlings (Kangaroos) 4 Alan Didak (Collingwood) 5 James Hird (Essendon) 6 Craig Bolton (Sydney) 7 Dean Solomon (Essendon). 8 Max Hudghton (St Kilda) 9 Austinn Jones (St Kilda) 10 Mark McVeigh (Essendon) 11 Joel Bowden (Richmond) 12 Nick Riewoldt (St Kilda) 14 Jason Johnson (Essendon) 16 Luke Ball (St Kilda) 17 Andrew Embley (West Coast) 18 Brad Green (Melbourne) 19 Joel Corey (Geelong) 20 Michael Braun (West Coast) 21 Brett Kirk (Sydney) 24 Jude Bolton (Sydney) 26 Nick Dal Santo (St Kilda) 32 Cameron Bruce (Melbourne) 33 Adam McPhee (Essendon) 42 Robert Haddrill (Fremantle).