Almost 300 people play in the Australian Rules Football League of Ireland – and next week the best are challenging for the European championship, writes fan HUGH MCDOWELL
DURING A FAMILY holiday to Australia in 2005 I was exposed to a sporting world so foreign and yet rather familiar. At Sydney Cricket Ground I witnessed names like Kennelly, O’Keefe and O’Loughlin starring for the Sydney Swans as they trounced the visiting Geelong Cats en route to winning their first Australian Football League premiership for 72 years. My brother and I bought an Aussie Rules ball and spent the rest of the trip trying, and failing, to emulate the skills of the men in red and white.
Fast-forward five years and, during a game of tag rugby in May, I accidentally stumbled across that same red-and-white Swans crest, training at Terenure rugby club, in Dublin. The sleeveless guernseys, the red oval ball, the frequent cursing: memories flooded back.
Despite the likenesses, however, it turns out that these Swans do not hail from Sydney. The South Dublin Swans are one of eight teams competing in the decade-old Australian Rules Football League of Ireland.
“We started playing in 1999, around the time of the International Rules series. Guys who had played Australian Rules in the US and England came home to Dublin and wanted to play, and at the same time there were guys in Belfast doing the same thing,” says Ciarán O’Hara, the league’s president, who plays with the Midwest Magpies. “The league was established in 2000, with people from Mullingar and Cork as well.”
This summer the league has had its strongest growth in years, with close to 300 players around the country. “Ten per cent of players are Australian, and another 10 to 15 per cent are from places such as Europe, New Zealand, South Africa and the US,” O’Hara says. “The rest are Irish, of whom 30 to 35 per cent would have played while living or travelling in Australia. Like most minority sports, the people involved are volunteers; we wouldn’t have anybody involved on a professional basis.”
This country’s affinity with Aussie Rules is the product of a marriage between our fascination with Australia and our passion for Gaelic Games. Although International Rules, the two sports’ hybrid offspring, has been much maligned in recent years by a string of unsavoury incidents during matches, our fondness for the Australian game has grown to the extent that TG4 broadcasts highlights of the AFL premiership every week.
Mark Fitzpatrick plays for the Dublin Demons. (Rule number one of naming an Aussie Rules team: suffix place name with aggressive creature. Rule number two: alliterate where possible.) He is one of 26 players who will fly to Copenhagen next Friday to represent Ireland at the AFL European Championships, co-hosted by the Danish capital and Malmö, in Sweden.
His team will face Croatia, Sweden and Germany in the group stages, and, according to Fitzpatrick, his team are outright favourites for the tournament. “We take it ridiculously seriously,” he says. “We’ve all been off the drink for two months.”
One of Fitzpatrick’s club and international team-mates, Aidan Conay, is equally enthusiastic. “A lot of people play Gaelic, but you can represent your country at Aussie Rules. You can get caps and play in international competitions. It’s a simple game. It mixes the catch-and-run of Gaelic and the tackling of rugby. It keeps you fit, too. We’re always looking for new players.”
Despite an Irish majority in most clubs’ membership, it is the smattering of Australians across the country that often adds star quality to the matches. Sadly, they will not be on hand to assist the Irish team in next week’s finals. Fitzpatrick is not worried: “The standard of Irish players is very high.”
