Match officials berated, big teams progressing despite defeat, managers speaking in clichés. Sound familiar?

THE GAA has been lectured for a while about all the things it could learn from rugby so with the Rugby World Cup approaching its climax – or rather, conclusion – it’s timely to reflect on the ebb and flow of influences between the games and how remarkably, the process has reversed and the oval ball has started to absorb essential elements from our indigenous sports.

No prizes for guessing the biggest breakthrough. Over the years the put-upon individuals who attempt to supervise and enforce discipline and uphold sporting behaviour on GAA fields have been known to sigh privately about how much they envy the rugby way of doing things: respect for referees, acceptance of decisions.

This yearning must have reached a poignant zenith when during the International Rules series 10 years ago Ireland selector Paddy Clarke received a suspension for manhandling a match official.

Part of the ingenious defence suggested was that such cut and thrust was commonplace in our games and that the Gael is disinclined to take authority figures in the game too seriously.

This anarchic projection embarrassed the GAA and it was left to Kildare’s Dermot Earley to explain on radio that actually it wasn’t all right to confront referees back home and that Ireland didn’t regard the strict policy on such things within the AFL as overly precious.

Then association president Seán McCague also responded to the latter suggestion by almost privately musing that he wished Gaelic games would have the same regard for referees.

But interestingly, it’s other sports that appear to have learned from the GAA. A referee acts decisively on an incident of foul play, which although not exactly rare is potentially extremely dangerous. His response is fully in keeping with the rules of the game as well as with refereeing directives and he sends off the offending player.

He is not, as we all now know, greeted by consensual approval for his fearless application of rule but by a firestorm of whingeing and special pleading.

The dissent is straight from the GAA’s manual: “A bit of common sense, ref!” “A yellow card would have been well enough”, “You’re after ruining a big game for everyone”, “He’s not that sort of player”, and “There was no intent!” For added impact, much of this comment and its attendant cluelessness about the rules can come from former players-turned-pundits.

Another thing learned by rugby has evidently been competition structure. The first round of the RWC has become just like the qualifiers. Unexpected performances and big scalps count for little in overall terms in the provincial/pool stages unless they can be validated in the knock-out phase.

In 2008 Tyrone were beaten by Down in an Ulster replay. Tyrone went on to win the All-Ireland. What happened Down?

A team’s job is simply to get to the knock-out rounds of the competition and they’re judged from there. Probably the RWC needs a bit more tweaking from a competitive point of view to make it more akin to the football rather than hurling qualifiers, as there are virtually no close-run matches let alone surprises in its initial stages compared to the GAA football championship.

That’s the drawback but it’s a good way – as the IRB will attest – of spinning out a tournament that’s short on competitive depth. It does lead to loud complaints about teams that have been beaten reaching the final and “not deserving to” despite having observed scrupulously the rules of the competition by losing when it’s not fatal to their prospects and winning when necessary.

Wales coach Warren Gatland, despite a lengthy spell in this country, appeared slow to pick up the essential characteristics of management speak in these parts and his match-week media conferences had earned him a reputation as a rugby version of Jose Mourinho.

Yet in the lead-up to the quarter-final against Ireland he triumphantly demonstrated that he had perfected the GAA manager’s art of previewing matches. “There’s a lot of history between Wales and Ireland,” he said. “They have qualities and world-class players but it is going to be tough to call. On the day, Ireland can beat us and we can beat them.”

Replace Wales and Ireland with two counties and maybe take out the “world-class” and you could be listening to the Sunday Game.

Significantly the monastic habits of the typical, serious intercounty footballer or hurler also look to have permeated the traditionally “boisterous” Welsh and the tendency that produced such recreational achievement as driving golf carts down motorways after epic amounts of slurping was set aside in favour of more austere preparation.

Still, it’s probably only fair to point out that this didn’t become a consensus attitude, as England and even New Zealand demonstrated at various stages.

Similarly you don’t have to worry about the Australians succumbing to downbeat statements about potential opponents or cautious disinclination to speak embarrassing truths.

It was at the first Test of the 1999 International Rules series in the Melbourne Cricket Ground and I was experiencing near starvation, having missed dinner beforehand. At half-time I wandered into the tea-room to discover an Aladdin’s Cave full of fancy pastries and rolls and a wide variety of successful attempts to encase meat in pastry.

Having loaded up a couple of paper plates I was all but drooling when a local radio station asked me to drop in for a few words. Caught off balance I was self-consciously imagining what the scene suggested. (“Is he really about to eat all of that or bringing it back for a few of the Irish media? Looking at him, it’s hard to say.”) I managed to recover, affect nonchalance – even indifference – to the food mountain assembled and slipped into the studio, artfully placing the plates behind some equipment before I was even introduced to the presenter.

After a brief discussion of the action up until then, I finished – and twitching like a junkie I began anticipating my plates. The presenter thanked me and reminded listeners who I was. Then as I headed out of the studio, my blood froze as he broadcast to whoever was listening in Melbourne: “We’ll let you get back to enjoying yah party pies”.

Anyway and on the subject of cross-pollination of ideas between sports, I’ve always felt that catering was one of the big things the GAA could learn from the International Rules series.