Ireland v Australia: a potted history. . .

SIDELINE CUT:The public's appetite for the International Rules experiment has waxed and waned over the years of its colourful history but the 'game' has refused to lie down and die, writes KEITH DUGGAN

BEAUTIFUL DREAM: It is the summer of 1967. Harry Beitzel schedules a stop in Ireland on his barnstorming tour of the world with the brawniest and best of Aussie Rules manhood. A challenge match is arranged against All-Ireland champions Meath. Full regulation Gaelic footie rules, in so far as they exist, apply. The Aussies beat the Irish at their own game. Paddy Downey, as ever, puts it best.

“We scoffed – with the requisite measure of politeness – when Mr Harry Beitzel, manager of the Aussie footballers, sent word last week that he felt his boys could beat Meath at Gaelic football. We ate mountains of humble pie at Croke Park last week when those bronzed Aussie giants in their sleeveless jerseys, looking like a line up for a Mr Universe contest, vindicated Mr Beitzel’s prediction.”

For the Gaels, the Summer of Love came early. The hosts were tripping over themselves in their admiration of the visitors from Down Under. The Aussies, meanwhile, couldn’t praise Ireland high enough, commenting not on the Ring of Kerry or the Giant’s Causeway but rather the Aer Lingus cabin crew of their flight from JFK to Shannon.

“The boys voted the Irish hostesses as the prettiest and most charming of all the airlines they travelled on,” said Harry at some dinner or another. Put that in your pipe, Michael O’Leary.

That summer a new trend is observed on Irish beaches. The Gael, partaking of a stroll on the edge of the Atlantic and a choc-ice, favours a sleeveless vest in order to achieve the bronzed-vest affect of the glamorous Aussie visitors. Does he go the whole hog and swap his rolled-up Farah slacks in favour of the sinfully tight shorts as exhibited by the Australians? No, he does not.

1968/69: Meath head to Australia. They keep mum on their evaluation of cabin crews. Meath great Peter McDermott – who will always be known as The Man With The Cap no matter how hard The Edge tries – sees the potential for a cross-cultural sporting phenomenon. All-Ireland champions Down are supposed to go to Australia. Kerry go instead. Up in Down they are not best pleased.

FADING HOPES: Aspirations for a triangular international football competition involving teams from New York, Ireland and Australia are habitually dreamt up and dashed. Money and stubbornness are often the reasons. However in 1978, a touring Australian team play Dublin in an exhibition match in Croke Park. The Dubs win 2-11 to 2-3. Diplomatic relations are threatened by the GAA’s failure to play Advance Australia Fair, the Aussie anthem. No recording of the composition could be found in all of Dublin. To fill the awkward silence and allay the puzzled frowns of the guests, a member of Central Council gallantly begins to belt out the first verse of Waltzing Matilda from the Ard Comhairle box. He is quickly hushed by his colleagues. RTÉ notices a huge surge in viewing figures for ‘Skippy, the Bush Kangaroo’.

AT LAST!: 1984 now. The Australians visit Ireland for the very first official composite rules Test. Dreary are the times, so great is the excitement. Reckless is the tackling. Robert Depierdeminico becomes the first man to see the line in the history of the sport. It does not stop “the Big Dipper” from becoming something of a cult hero in Ireland. People just like saying his name. The Aussies are roundly booed in Croke Park ahead of the third match. They win anyway. Afterwards, the Irish fans applaud them. Jack O’Shea stands on a bench in the Aussie dressing-room wearing an Aussie singlet and gives a rousing valedictory. The victorious visitors chant “Jacko, Jacko, Jacko”. Like everyone then, they kind of loved Jacko.

RUMBLE IN THE, MMMH, OVAL: In 1986, Australia play Ireland in Perth and win by five broken noses and several busted rubs to a light graze on the forearm of Rules’ keeper Gary McIntosh. The Irish are incensed, the Australians indignant. “We are not a very physical side,” protested Aussie manager John Todd. Ireland are branded “The Wimps”. This is too much. The game catches fire back home. Televisions are brought into schools for the definitive Third Test, played on Friday, October 23rd, 1986. Euro ’88, Jack Charlton, Stephen Roche, Italia ’90: all of these things are in the future. But for Johnny Logan and the Dunnes Stores Anti-Apartheid strikers, Ireland has won nothing of note internationally in the 1980s. All international honour and prestige is riding on the series. As it turns out, the Irish win easily in Melbourne and are greeted as heroes on their return to Dublin airport. The Aussies promise revenge.

WILDING OUT: The Series grows. Among the unusual sights in these years was that of the Ireland team running onto the field and jumping through a huge papier mache banner which reads: “The Irish Do It With More Skill”. Did the stadium fairly fizz with sexual tension because of the daring innuendo of that slogan? No, it did not.

The Aussies win in 1987, a series best remembered for a spectacular dust-up in the third match. Irish manager Eugene McGee says: “I’ve seen better football in these three Tests than I’ve seen in the last 10 years of Gaelic football.”

Those standing outside the Aussie dressing-room are treated to a rousing chorus of the girly Air Supply classic ‘I’m All Out of Love’ by the victorious team. Allegedly.

The stock market crash of 1987 leads – in an extremely roundabout way (sponsorship, cash) – to a postponement of the ’88 Tour. By now, Neighbours has eclipsed the Aussie Rules guys as the most popular Aussie phenomenon on Irish television. In 1990, Ireland trounce Australia and the project quietly fades.

IN THE WILDERNESS: In the 1990s, the International Rules is half forgotten about. All mention of Australia in GAA literature is confined to match programmes at league matches, in which players, responding to questionnaires about their likes and dislikes, vote overwhelmingly for Mad Max as their choice of film and for the Ideal Date category they plump in great numbers for Elle “The Body” McPherson. Rumours that ‘The Body” had been spotted in the crowd at a league match between Tyrone and Meath prove unsubstantiated.

REVIVAL: A combination of nostalgia and national derring-do led to a reopening of the hotline between Croke Park and wherever the AFL head honchos do business. It turns out that a generation of Irish men and women retain affectionate, if hazy, memories of the wild and exciting exhibitions of the sport between the Irish and Australians that lit up the dull 1980s. These young go-getters are now prospering in finance and sponsorship and the like and so a new version of those lawless 1980s games is hustled into being. The Aussies arrive and promptly win. Colm O’Rourke, veteran of the ’80s Tests suggests that the Aussies “give” Ireland Brian Stynes, the Dublin native turned Aussie Rules star, so they can make a game of the second Test. The Aussies don’t oblige.

WHAT’S IN THE BOX?: “If you wanna box, say you wanna box and we’ll box.” They wanted to box.

PARENTHOOD: The Rules slips into an uneasy arrangement, with fluctuating attendances, games of wildly differing quality and several bone-crunching tackles which look sensational with the slo-mo possibilities of the internet. Like Hollywood parents of a troubled, rebellious but undeniably charming son, the AFL and the GAA repeatedly declare that they are “committed” to the Series.

And they are hoping that 2010 will be the year it finally grows up and acts responsibly.