Contrary to appearances, International Rules football can be a delicate business. Two weeks ago Sean Boylan had shaved his panel to 45 but a moment’s hesitation over one of his forwards forced him to reattach the initially discarded player and the panel was 46 again. Inside Croke Park, people began to wonder how long this process would take.
After their training camp in Toulouse last weekend the panel was clipped by five and last Tuesday was meant to see it shrink to 27. Instead, Boylan chose to wait. He will review a practice game held under lights in Galway last night and name his panel tomorrow. In his time with Meath, Boylan made sufficient hard calls to dismiss any notion that they are beyond him but International Rules is an alien game and its current health demands that every move is painstakingly thought out.
This year Ireland need to be competitive and the referees unyielding. While Australia criticised Ireland’s gamesmanship in provoking some of last year’s incidents, they will know they bounded over an accepted line of combat.
“Any code you play you play as hard and as tough and fast as you possibly can,” said Australia’s Michael Voss in yesterday’s edition of The Australian newspaper. “But you have always got to have that element of fairness to it. That has been spoken about a lot.
“There is probably more emphasis on it this year than any other year. Sometimes situations escalate and how you control yourself in that situation; that is controlled aggression. How you handle yourself is very important because we represent a lot of people; not just Australia, but our code and the clubs we play for. It is a pretty important series from that aspect.”
While they need to learn, Ireland, too, have a role to play. As he prepared to come home with the Australian squad this afternoon, their selector Jim Stynes wondered what welcome he would receive, having defended Chris Johnson, who turned from Australian captain into an unstoppable wrecking machine during last year’s second test, laying waste to anything in a white jersey within range of his forearms. The behaviour of the Irish had stoked the game into producing that kind of spark, he said. A nation of Liveline callers held their lace handkerchiefs to their mouths and shrieked.
Johnson’s behaviour was inexcusable but Stynes’ point about the behaviour of the Irish deserved consideration. Before the first Australian incursion, an array of incidents largely alien to their game had enraged them. When tackled, some Irish players reacted as they normally would in a Gaelic football game, dragging out of the Australian jersey and, in one case, planting their hand in an opponent’s face and pushing them off.
It was cheap, petty stuff, which has become the grim preserve of most Gaelic football games while being largely rooted out in the AFL. Minutes before Trent Croad started firing punches at Tom Kelly, Ciaran McManus was captured swinging an arm at Croad’s face. Just before Hodge offloaded a flurry of punches at McManus, a prone McManus had been caught on cameraplanting his boot in Hodge’s groin.
“We’ll be encouraging our players to play the ball, as we did last year,” says Stynes. “Things got out of control in the second game. The Irish were a lot more physical in the second game. They were playing for pride. Our guys didn’t expect that (level of aggression) and they didn’t like it. But we don’t expect it to get out of hand again.”
The Irish also need to assert more control over every element of their game. The make-up of Boylan’s training panel already hints at significant change in the final squad’s shape and tone. Last year Australia accepted that the best AFL players don’t form the best International Rules teams, that the hybrid game is alien to both games in fundamental ways. This year Boylan has followed suit in his selection.
Only seven of last year’s team have survived. Where Kerry provided silks spun by Colm Cooper, Tomás Ó Sé and Eoin Brosnan last year, this time Boylan has opted to borrow their body armour: Aidan O’Mahony, Paul Galvin, Marc Ó Sé, Kieran Donaghy and Brendan Guiney.
The panel looks bulkier. Re-introducing Kieran McGeeney provides the team with an excellent captain and somebody capable of being a strong presence in defence. Aside from their indiscipline and the draughty gaps in their squad, Ireland frequently showed little understanding of the game’s most basic rules last year. From the first throw-in of last year’s first Test, Irish players were penalised for encroaching too quickly. They were caught for not releasing the ball having been tackled, for dissent, for late tackles. Too many Australian scores came from poor kick-outs and a chronic lack of targets to aim at.
They have attempted to repair the damage. Last weekend in Toulouse, the panel underwent a rules tutorial with referees Pat McEnaney and David Coldrick. Goalkeeper Alan Quirke has a good kick-out and should reduce the error rate that hurt Ireland badly last year. Having travelled to Australia with just two centre fielders, this year’s training panel contains six centre fielders and up to 11 players capable of consistently gaining possession around the middle.
The Irish have yet to dissect the Australian squad but their findings should tally with last year’s. Everything about their approach has been tightened and honed. In 2004 they assembled later in the week, losing a day’s training. This year they will enjoy almost a week’s training in Killarney before ther first Test. This weekend the players trained together in Waverley in wind and rain. Pockets of the panel have been training with the round ball for a while.
After years of filling their teams with players too bulky to maintain the high tempo required by International Rules or too tall and unwieldy to judge the trajectory of the bouncing round ball, Australia twigged that their good small ones would still be able to match Ireland’s good big ones.
“Our gameplan is pretty much based on the players we can pick,” says Stynes. “Things won’t exactly change but there might be different nuances to it. It’ll only unfold when we see the type of players we’ve got. There’ll be a few edges there. Enough to keep Ireland on their toes.”
Only six players survive from last year, though Australia have again sought players with speed, size and hunger. Danyle Pearce passed up a promising career as a basketball player for a contract with the West Coast Eagles and has the pace to match his size. Justin Sherman enjoyed a good first season with Brisbane and is cut from a similar cloth to Pearce, as is Campbell Brown of Hawthorn, a quick, aggressive player who missed the last 20 games of the 2005 season through suspension. The presence of Michael Voss and Barry Hall adds experience to a squad full of players with things to prove and names to make.
Aside from the scale of their physical assault in the second Test, everything about Australia last year was dazzling. They reduced their margin for error by perfecting the handpass, working the ball into position close to goal before shooting. That their over total dwarfed Ireland’s was a damning indictment of Ireland’s skill levels when Australia turned the screws.
“So much of the game involves shadowing that getting used to the type of tackle that goes in when you’re about to shoot is important,” says Boylan. “We’ve been trying to replicate that. Taking that tackle can sap the energy as well.”
Meanwhile, Boylan will chew hard on the tip of his pencil for another day before reluctantly drawing lines through seven more names. After last year’s collapse, Ireland should at least be durable and resilient this time. It is hard to expect any more just yet.
