Australians back McCague stance

INTERNATIONAL RULES: The Australian Football authorities have backed GAA president Seán McCague's stern comments on last Sunday's International Rules first Test at Croke Park.

The match featured a number of outbreaks of indiscipline and prompted McCague to threaten discontinuation of the series should there be any repeat of those scenes in next weekend's second Test.

"We fully understand the concerns," according to AFL PRO Patrick Keane. "The committee will view the video evidence later this week and we will wait to see what disciplinary action it feels necessary to take. We support Seán's view that there can't be any return to the sort of scenes that were seen in the early days of International Rules.

"I guess there were a number of incidents but I don't think it resembled the games in the 1980s. The vast majority of the play was sporting."

Two players were shown a yellow card during Sunday's match. Ireland and Meath player Evan Kelly threw a punch at Josh Francou and Australia's David Neitz charged at Armagh's Paul McGrane after the ball had gone and poleaxed his opponent.

Although it will surprise most GAA followers, that challenge would actually be allowed within Australian Rules football.

"Yes, as long as the ball is within five metres and the opponent is upright," explained Keane, "and you are entitled to bump a player front on as long as you don't hit the head region."

Meanwhile, news from the Ireland camp is that Dublin goalkeeper Stephen Cluxton has been called into the panel. "We've brought him in," according to coach John O'Keeffe, "and he'll be available for training on Friday. We'll take a closer look at the possibility of him lining out in goal but no decision has been made on that."

The move comes after a tough afternoon for Mayo's Peter Burke. He made some good saves - including one in the closing minutes that kept the series alive - but his kick-outs weren't great and regularly put the defence under pressure.

Cluxton had been included in the initial panel but his commitments with the Dublin seniors and under-21s prevented him from attending many of the training sessions.

There has also been speculation that Meath's Darren Fay, a stalwart of the International Rules scene, may have recovered from the ankle injury which ruled out his selection for the Ireland panel. Fay played for his club Trim last weekend, his first action in five weeks.

He was reported to have struggled a little with fitness at times and O'Keeffe will request a fitness report on Fay before taking any further decision.

It's not entirely clear if it would be possible for Ireland to expand the panel beyond the addition of Cluxton, which brings it up to 27, the same size as the Australian panel.

Paul Barden, the Longford player who had to drop out last week because of illness, has recovered and is expected to take his place back on the panel for the second Test.

His replacement Nicholas Walsh will revert to the replacements' panel.

Graham Geraghty will, after all, be available for Sunday's Test. There were fears that he would not be released because of his club Seneschalstown's Meath championship semi-final against Dunshaughlin next Sunday, but the Meath county board have deferred that game until Sunday week.