Players just like an old-fashioned challenge

On Gaelic Games:Events of 2005 and '06 have left such a rancid legacy that it will take more than the one well behaved series, which we got two years ago, to restore equilibrium, writes SEAN MORAN

INTERNATIONAL RULES is a novelty in more than the straightforward sense. From series to series there’s no reliable indicator as to how teams will perform, as the changeover in personnel makes any sort of form lines impossible to establish.

This year is no different except that it’s even harder to assess the teams, two years after the last series and with a new manager in charge of Ireland. The stop-start nature of the international series places further obstacles in the way of continuous development and consistent preparation.

All a manager and his assistants can do is follow their instincts, pick the best players and devise a strategy that they hope will exploit whatever vulnerabilities the opposition might have. Sometimes they’ll find it easy. In 2004 it was clear that the Australians weren’t fully tuned in and Ireland managed to play much as they wished, frequently making few concessions to the international game in running up a vast score in the first Test.

Sometimes they’ll find it hard. A year after the 2004 series, the AFL put Kevin Sheedy, a hugely-experienced club coach, in charge and he looked at the 2005 All-Ireland final between Kerry and Tyrone and tailored his team’s style accordingly.

Crewed by fast-ball players, Australia sailed through the series, easily negotiating what had been Ireland’s big advantage – the room to play ball – 12 months previously and raising the demands of the international game with pace, strength and some of the most accurate shooting of any AFL team in the history of the game.

Bizarrely, with the series effectively over by half-time in the first Test, Sheedy’s team also indulged in some crazy acts of indiscipline in the second Test, creating ill will, public hostility and injecting considerable unease into relations between the associations.

The events of 2005 and ’06 have left such a rancid legacy that it will take more than the one well behaved series, which we got two years ago, to restore equilibrium.

Those hostile to the international project are often baffled by why it has proved so popular with players. I believe that it’s because of the old-fashioned concept of a challenge. Footballers are interested in seeing how they measure up against the best players in a different game with enough similarities to make a hybrid workable.

The scenes of celebration that follow success in the series are genuine, whoever wins. Irish players see themselves as underdogs because they are playing full-time athletes and conversely the Australians believe that they are effectively playing opponents at their own game.

Involvement in the series gives GAA footballers the opportunity to do what makes them very good in the first place: play the game in front of them, improvise and work it out. In the aftermath of the big win in the Adelaide Test of 2001, the Irish were thrilled with the success of having played a lot of ball on the deck.

It hadn’t worked out so effectively in the first Test but a week later the soccer touches or old-style ground football left the Australians flummoxed. It takes nerve because of the International Rules tackle but when it works it can be really effective and it wasn’t surprising to hear that the current team have been practising it, given that manager Anthony Tohill captained the 2001 side.

Just as the international game has had an influence on what Australia and Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse described a couple of years ago as the “Gaelicisation” of the AFL game, the influence hasn’t been all one way.

Dr Niall Moyna of DCU, one of the best known sports scientists in the country and an advocate of coaching innovation within the GAA, has put on record his belief that the international series has at times shown up defects in the way players here are developed.

“There are three things in learning: the task, the environment and then the player. We tend to put things in a very stable environment whereas when you actually play a game it’s all about instability – you’re always making decisions based on a split second and what you see in front of you.

“We’re extremely didactic: here’s a drill, practise the drill and now play a game – if you’re good at the drill you’ll be good at the game, instead of allowing our players from a very young age to think and exposing them to lots of different environments. Do that and the player becomes more adaptable. We tend to brag about how wonderful our games are but we’re very insular in how we approach them. We can learn from other sports – sure, but how do we measure?”

Discipline is another aspect of this. Tohill acknowledged last week that problems of confrontation have arisen because Irish players just aren’t mentally prepared for being tackled and can instinctively lash out at the tackler.

Accepting that the full contact is part of the game would help them to roll over and get on with the match.

One player who willingly embraced the challenge of playing with his head up was Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, whose retirement from intercounty hurling has resonated this week.

An aspect of his career that drew less attention was his status as the last great dual player to reach All-Ireland finals in both football and hurling. Alan Kerins of Galway did manage the feat in 2001 but football was a comparatively fleeting part of his career whereas Ó hAilpín pursued it whole heartedly until the car crash in 2001 forced a reappraisal.

Long after his retirement from intercounty football he was called up to the international panel by Peter McGrath and acquitted himself well in 2004 and ’05. Asked on tour in the latter year whether he would have liked a professional career in the AFL like his brother Setanta, he replied candidly. “I would have certainly liked to get a shot at it. That would have been my number one dream growing up and even though I didn’t get a chance I’m delighted my brother did.”

Instead he gave Gaelic games a near professional commitment, maintaining a disciplined lifestyle and respect for the physical demands of elite sport. His mastery of both the national language and national sport combined with his Fijian heritage to make him an exemplar of the interaction between ethnic diversity and Irish culture.

There in Melbourne in 2005 it must have crossed his mind that life is capricious. Had his parents not moved from Sydney to Ireland when he was 11 he might well have become a professional sportsman in the space and sunshine of Australia.

Instead he was there as an amateur on behalf of Ireland, accepting the challenge just as this year’s team will be doing over the next fortnight.