Series breathes with right spirit and right result

Australia 44 Ireland 45:SHOUTING AND tumult. Loud accusations of heavy-handed Australians using unreasonable force against outraged young Irishmen. Nothing new in the aftermath of an International Rules Test, sez you. Except . . . On this occasion Seán Boylan and his captain are buoyant and smiling and accepting congratulations. No one has been carted off to hospital and the series itself is for once not on life-support.

But outside in the corridor beside the media conference room there is an unhappy legion of Ireland supporters, who for their zesty high spirits in invading the pitch at Subiaco Oval, have been met by a more vigorous response than a weary public announcement that "Plan B is in operation".

They are to be taken away and fined a large sum of money and are finding their incarceration less than pleasant, as torrential rain hammers down in the dark of a Perth night.

Messrs Boylan and Cavanagh, together with vice-captain Graham Canty, are removed from these travails and reflecting on a redemptive night's international football.

Two years after the series was suspended in chaos and recrimination, Ireland and Australia have served up an interesting and ultimately exciting Test, which leaves the series nicely balanced before next Friday's encounter at the MCG.

Twice Ireland had big leads erased, but by the end they still had one point in the bank to take to Melbourne. Defence had been the keynote, and maybe unsurprisingly, the attacking moves didn't sparkle as brightly as everyone might have wished.

"The Australians are so good at taking up the zones and cutting off your options," said Boylan. "That is the huge challenge for the lads. You can plan anything any way you want, but they have such an ability to vary and alter their game and it's not always easy to cope with that.

"I thought the lads did well, but we did have difficulty. To get goals you have to get the ball up there first, and it was difficult."

Still, fired by the shrewd energies of Cavanagh, adding to his impossibly fat file of great performances this year, Steven McDonnell and Kerry's Kieran Donaghy did enough for the team to end in credit.

But the defence, under siege for much of the second and fourth quarters, was a star turn, coming to grips with the pace and skill of their AFL opponents.

"We had done a lot of work before we came out here," said Canty, whose status as Ireland's best international player this decade was enhanced by the amount of ball he played and how intelligently he used it. "We know each other's style of play an awful lot and there was great communication on the pitch. Finian Hanley was nearly on for the whole game and he's a great fixture who is always talking in your ear saying 'you need to push on' or 'drop off, man coming to your left', 'man coming to your right'.

"Overall there was great communication from six, seven, eight lads who were at any one time in there defending."

Cavanagh, whose third-quarter goal helped turn the match, echoed his manager in paying tribute to the match officials, and added that the mood between the teams had been a big improvement on recent series.

"They (referee Pat McEnaney and AFL umpire Stephen McLarnon) were fantastic, but the big thing was that both sets of players bought into the sportsmanship. The meeting on Wednesday night made a massive difference.

"Beforehand we shook hands and everyone wished each other well and we did the same after the game, and that mutual respect underlined a massive difference between this game and the previous series and it showed on the field.

"There were plenty of big hits out there but it was probably one of the most enjoyable games that I played in."

At a more subdued affair elsewhere in the stadium, Australia coach Mick Malthouse ruefully pondered the tiniest of defeats but reckoned a further week's work would fine-tune his side's challenge. He also had a special commendation for Ireland's half-backs, Canty and Armagh's tireless Ciarán McKeever - who had coolly helped to run down the clock by exchanging short, kicked passes with Gallagher during the final quarter - assisted by Bryan Cullen and Aaron Kernan.

"If you look at the stats - and I know that stats aren't all that they're made out to be . . . In this game the half-back line's always going to be the position of a lot of the football. You can see players roll back and roll forward. I'm not too sure how many times an Australian team has had a man sent off, but what the Irish taught us today was that they knew exactly what to do when there's a 10-man (sic) side against you.

"As it turned out we got forward in that period and got scores, but they were able to control the game so that a point was enough. So their half-back line was very, very good."

GAA president Nickey Brennan also appeared before the Irish media conference had ended. Asked was he relieved the series he had staked his office on reinstating had gone off so well, he responded: "I suppose that's not an inappropriate word to use under the circumstances. I suppose my head would have been on the block had there been a problem. I listened to the players, worked hard on getting this thing back and we know the rules very well. The AFL played a big part in getting it to this stage and it's so far so good."