Aussies break the rules

GAELIC GAMES: Under the closed roof of Melbourne's Telstra Dome, it was as if the devil played his trump card at the end of what has been a disastrous Foster's International Rules series.

The return of violence and reckless indiscipline to the international game was about the last thing the series needed at this moment.

After the ominous indications in the first Test that Australia had raised their performance to levels Ireland would struggle to match into the future, what was needed was a fast, open game with the visitors recovering some of their reputation.

Instead, and for all that Ireland gave a more committed display, Australia won nearly as convincingly, 63-42, to capture the Cormac McAnallen Cup, and for good measure conjured up the worst excesses of the old days of thuggery and mayhem.

A mean-minded undercurrent ran through the match, with niggling and hitting in the tackle and at the mark. But the bleakest moment came in the 32nd minute when Australian captain Chris Johnson committed a stunningly dangerous high tackle on Philip Jordan.

Johnson was red-carded, and with sheep and lambs clearly on his mind decided to belt a couple more players before leaving the field. It had been an unbelievable performance from someone selected to jointly captain his country.

Ireland manager Peter McGrath strongly condemned the indiscipline. "Some of the tackles were unacceptable in any game. Some of them are not sport, because there were amateur players put in a high-risk situation. There could have been very serious injuries, and that has no place in any game.

"I can't say strongly enough that what happened out there in certain instances was unacceptable in any sport. It goes outside the parameters, putting life and limb at serious risk.

"There has to be a long, hard look in the cold light of day at some of the incidents there tonight and some of the tackles our players were subjected to.

"I haven't been inside, but I saw Anthony Lynch's face and it's not too pretty, and there's a couple of others too.

"The level of violence has to be worrying, because there are a lot of kids watching this back home and I wouldn't like to think that they would take example from some of the acts of villainy we saw out there tonight."

One of the major problems facing the accommodation between the GAA and the AFL is that they don't always agree on what is acceptable and what isn't.

This could be seen in the comments of Australian coach Kevin Sheedy, who although - and this was significant - low-key and somewhat apologetic, still had his moments, as when he suggested his captain's delinquency had been in some way justified.

"There might have been one or two players out there annoying one or two of our boys, so somebody was going to suffer a penalty along the way and that's what happened."

Asked for his response to McGrath's evident unhappiness, Sheedy again equivocated: "He's got every right with head-high tackles. But we weren't very happy with some of the low tackles, and that was annoying some of our players."

Pressed as to what he meant by "low tackles", he refused to elaborate: "I'm not saying anything."

Had Johnson been annoyed by "low tackles"? "Most of the players were. Chris Johnson's the captain and he might have said, 'Well, if that's what's going on we'll have to sort something out'."

Sheedy, who had - in jest, he subsequently claimed - suggested at Thursday's media conference that Ireland should try breaching the rules on foul play themselves, did say his captain had exhibited some remorse.

"He knows. He's made his comment. He knows he's done the wrong thing. We wouldn't like it happening to us. No doubt when we go to Ireland next year I've no doubt that the Irish will serve it up to Australia in Ireland. We've got to cop that."

By this stage something of the outrage back in Ireland was beginning to surface. Sheedy was asked about his reaction to comments made by AFL champions Sydney Swans and former Kerry player Tadhg Kennelly, who had said the Australians showed Ireland no respect by engaging in rough-house tactics.

"It's hard to say because I haven't heard him. He's got every right to feel what he thinks. He's a guy that we would listen to because he's a fantastic sportsman."

A measure of the impact created by the home side's performance, attended in a rare piece of good news by a decent crowd of 45,428, was that Australian journalists couldn't understand why a team that had been so superior a week before should have found it necessary to descend to such tactics in what was essentially a dead rubber.

Australia's superiority hadn't ebbed much, even if they weren't as impressive as in Perth, and a steady performance would have comfortably won the second Test without triggering a furore that will create an opportunity for the minority who have consistently opposed the international game.

GAA president Seán Kelly was subdued when asked for his opinion on the events. "I wouldn't like to overplay it. Australia won the series fair and square and played fine football.

"There were a few isolated incidents, particularly where four and five people were becoming involved. That is not something you'd want to encourage and we'll have to look at that to ensure that, where there has to be a schemozzle between two people, that it doesn't spread to more."