Home apathy puts series on a hiding to nothing

The anonymity of the AFL side and the evidence that the Australian public are losing interest represent the biggest threat to the series

TWO OUT of three ain’t good. When Ireland manager Anthony Tohill accurately outlined what the apocalypse for International Rules would look like, there was little surprise that violent indiscipline and one-sided matches were mentioned. After all, the whole concept was halted five years ago because of the first, and the second has been a growing concern with well-contested international series becoming a rarity.

But whereas we didn’t expect a couple of these concerns to be confirmed so soon – by the end of the week – there was particular alarm that the one horseman that few anticipated, had drifted along, his lugubrious presence casting the longest shadow in the days since the first Test.

The idea that apathy would undermine the series hadn’t been seriously considered since the first time the modern internationals arrived here 12 years ago. On that occasion, given that there had been a history of poor attendances in Australia during the original international series before the AFL became fully involved, there was some trepidation about how the whole idea would float.

Irish media were sceptical when told that just 10,000 tickets had been sold for the first Test in 1999 in the MCG, but that it was more of a tradition in Melbourne for ‘walk-up’ crowds to constitute the bulk of an attendance. We were confounded when 65,000 arrived on the night and the idea that the international series might never know another poor day in Australia took root.

By and large that happened.

Although there has been fluctuation, the early aggregate attendances here in Australia kept up more or less with the figure of around 100,000 per series that has been the gold standard or the lower but satisfactory target of about 80,000 reached in all years.

So the tendency has developed to trust the AFL to do their own thing and deliver the crowds, even though there has been incremental slippage.

There will be questions asked about how the crowd declined last week to just over 22,000 – the same figure that attended the very first Test of the resumed series in Croke Park back in October 1998 – when the GAA have their regular meeting with the AFL at the end of this week. Among them will be why the AFL released their fixtures’ programme for next year on the day of the first Test. When the series is in Ireland there’s no mistaking that it’s the first item on the GAA’s agenda for the two weeks in question.

In Australia, it’s not always so clear.

Promotion hasn’t been noticeably different than in other years allowing for the fact that Melbourne was getting cranked up for its big race week – this year’s series taking place later than any since 1990. Two things have made this different to any previous visit by Ireland – the relative anonymity of the AFL team and the escalating evidence that the public are losing interest.

If there had to be a touchstone of the success of the international project it would simply be . . . crowds. Whereas it is all very well for the GAA and AFL to liaise with each other as part of the coming together, that in itself isn’t a reason to continue playing the game if the public are no longer interested.

GAA director general Páraic Duffy expressed the view this week that if the series loses critical mass here in Australia, it will soon collapse in Ireland as well, as crowds disengage as it becomes clear that there is effectively no interested opposition. He also spelled out the practical implications – at present the series pays for itself with revenue from the home tests funding the alternating year’s travel and without that there would, certainly in these stricken times, be no chance of subsidising the series out of general coffers.

Neither should the Australians be exclusively blamed for the crisis facing the series. Their team’s shortcomings last week were on a par with Ireland’s six years ago – something that was forgotten about in the aftermath of the cartoon violence of that year’s second Test.

There are a number of reasons why the need to keep Ireland in the game has impacted negatively on perceptions of the series in Australia. Firstly, the concessions on playing rules – on top of the round ball, there have been introduced restrictions on hand passing or ‘hand balling’ and the unlimited use of inter-change players.

Furthermore, whereas it was hailed as a breakthrough for improved disciplinary behaviour, the extension of suspensions from the international into the domestic games can hardly have encouraged clubs to make players available even when they’re fit and inclined to interrupt their off season.

More profoundly, though, as a friend living here pointed out, the series lacks a narrative to which the Australians can wholeheartedly subscribe. The AFL is going through a boom period because it is combining deeply rooted, visceral passions for a game and its clubs with a successful commercial operation that has successfully sold the appeal of indigenous football to a mainstream entertainment market.

It has embarked upon an expansionist scheme to plant clubs in Western Sydney and in Queensland on the Gold Coast near Brisbane, giving the AFL a foothold in five of the six states. The Gold Coast’s promotional requirement explains why Friday’s second Test is to be held here, although the consequences of having to sell this match in essentially a new market when the series is dead in the water may be another extremely poor attendance.

Like some football followers at home, the Australians are sometimes jealous about their game and not inclined to warm to a hybrid that doesn’t appear to engage their very best players or to represent to them a fair balance of the skills in both constituent codes.

It’s a feature of successful indigenous games that they are self-reliant and maybe not always that open to outside influences.

It’s a pity, however, that two sports with so much in common and having combined so successfully at times over the past 12 years, haven’t been able to cope with the pressure – however intense – of expressing their respective individuality as a shared celebration on a sustainable basis.

As they say on the best graves: ‘Horseman, pass by.”