Australian International Rules selector Jim Stynes has appeared to back down on comments made in the aftermath of Sunday's second Test against Ireland at Croke Park, reports Ian O'Riordan.

He apologised for his slant on the Graham Geraghty injury and for his outburst directed at Ireland manager Seán Boylan, and said he hoped the series would survive.

"I thought that Geraghty had put in a dirty tackle on the sideline and now that I've seen the video I realise that wasn't the case so I need to take that back," said Stynes last night on Newstalk's Off the Ball.

"I know that you're not supposed to sling a player to the ground and in hindsight you'd say that it probably should have been a free-kick. But they weren't pinging those free-kicks throughout the two games and so that's often what happens; the interpretation of the rules gets bent a little bit and it creates that in the game."

Stynes maintained the series still has a future: "For me, with the series, I've always been supportive. I'll do whatever I can to keep it going. It allows young players to get a trip overseas and sample the life of a professional sportsmen and it's helped both sports to evolve.

"At the end of the day we're all disappointed with what went on in the first quarter and we'd rather it didn't because the series is now in jeopardy, which is really sad because there was some really good football played . . .

"We told our players that we needed to be a little bit more physical because in the first Test we didn't get any tackles made. That was our approach and it just happened that there were a lot of wrestles.

"Probably the referees should have been a bit more severe early in the game. They should have yellow-carded someone when the wrestling started before the throw-in, and there probably should have been a couple of people sent off in the first quarter too."