Australia play their physical card

Battle lines for tomorrow's first International Rules Test (RTE 1, 10.10 a.m.) were drawn yesterday when Australian coach Dermot Brereton said that his team would be trying to press home their physical advantage against Ireland. He was speaking at a press conference in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, the venue for the match.

"I believe the tackle - being able to physically wrap up a bloke is an advantage for Australia and we will be using that to gain a physical advantage.

"Figuring out the tactics is enjoyable. Every time we nail something to the floor, we look at a video or see the Irish training and have to go back and look at it again. It's a great honour to apply your knowledge of a sport in its evolutionary stages."

The Australian team has been preparing for the last month. Again the team has been drawn from those players honoured as All-Australians - the equivalent of All Stars - but the panel has been hit by injuries.

Brereton said that the replacements brought in had been selected on the basis of their likely aptitude for the hybrid game rather than their exploits during the recent Rules season.

"This is the fifth week of training. We've had two or three a week and the lowest turnout has been 15. Getting all the players together is difficult because not everyone's based in Melbourne. A guy coming from Perth to Melbourne is travelling the same distance as from Dublin to Moscow - just for training."

One player who has demonstrated a great desire to represent his country is Australian goalkeeper Stephen Silvagni who was present at the press conference. The Carlton full back was a star performer in last year's series but his participation this time around had been threatened by hip and back injuries.

To the general surprise of the Rules world he announced last week that he was foregoing the prescribed period of rest and recuperation in order to play for his country. The statement of intent on behalf of the series was a welcome one for Brereton who reacted approvingly:

"That was a great bonus. That's indicative of the guys' attitudes. Here you've got a 32 year-old bloke who I suppose a lot of people would be saying, `What's in it for him?' Well it's quite obvious."

Slivagni said that once he had received assurances that his injury wouldn't get any worse, he hadn't any hesitation about getting involved.

"I think if you asked anyone who went over (last year), it was one of the best experiences you could hope for. The way everything was run and the way the games went and they were really played out very well and there was a lot of skill in it. I'm really looking forward to this series"

There had been earlier exchanges between the parties on the balance of power within the International Rules game. Ireland captain John McDermott initially stated that floodlights would not disadvantage his team and that the practice match had been "just like playing in daylight".

He demurred a little from manager Colm O'Rourke's statement that many Irish players would prefer the hybrid game to football as played at home. "I think players enjoy the challenge of the new game," he said.

In contrast to last year's Australian coach Leigh Matthews who described International Rules as "90 per cent Gaelic football", Brereton - and the Australians in general - have placed more of an emphasis on the give and take involved in the game.

Whereas the Irish benefit from the round ball and the rectangular pitch, the Australians benefit from the tackle and the mark.

McDermott drew laughter from the conference after being asked by an incredulous local reporter: "You've no mark in your game? How does that work?"

The high-fielding Irish captain replied: "I often wonder myself".

His response to the perennial question of the oval ball was interesting. The party line on this had been put by AFL president Wayne Jackson: "In all fairness last year was a 50-50 contest. Any major change to the rules would alter the balance dramatically. There's Australian players who can put an oval ball through the eye of a needle."

McDermott's reply was, however, that "skilful players can adapt to any ball".

His Australian counterpart, Nathan Buckley, agreed that the hosts had been stung by their defeat in last year's series.

"Definitely. There's only one name on the trophy, Ireland. In '99, we'd like to get Australia's name on it. The hardest adjustment has been to the round ball and to an extent the square pitch because we're used to using the ball wide to the wings and in this game, we can run out of space."

Wayne Jackson said that the game "deserved" an attendance of 60,000 at tomorrow's match but in truth, the best that can be hoped for is likely to be half that. Some promotional effort has gone into distributing free tickets for children but the event has yet to take off in the local media.

Yesterday's training sessions and the press conference attracted Australian television cameras for the first time and coverage has only begun to pick up two days before the first Test.

There has been some private grumbling on the part of the GAA about the choice of Adelaide as venue for the second Test. It is neither a major Rules city nor a particularly populous one but apparently it returned the best viewing figures when last year's series was broadcast live from Ireland.

Jackson conceded that the attendance in Adelaide would be greatly influenced by how the first Test goes - both in terms of result and the crowd turnout.

In the light of all this, yesterday's talk from both the AFL president and his GAA counterpart Joe McDonagh about the prospects of the series going international and taking place in New York with an Irish-American team involved seemed a little farfetched.

"We have talked with the GAA about the long-term vision of playing International Rules against the Irish-Americans in New York," said Jackson. "So we won't know how big a success this has been for some years to come but there are exciting possibilities."