The lure of Australian RulesSeán Moran has a look at the realistic possibilities of Gaelic stars making it big in Australia

It's easy to sympathise with Na Piarsaigh. The Cork club head into tomorrow afternoon's AIB Munster semi-final against Toomevara likely to be short two of the attack that delivered the county title last weekend. Both Setanta and Aisake Ó hAilpín are bound for Melbourne to play Australian Rules football.

Although Aisake Ó hAilpín isn't due to fly out until today, local feeling has all but given up hope that he'll stay around any longer.

Setanta's career with Carlton is nearly a year old but the fact that his younger brother is now to try his hand at impressing the club leaves the Cork hurling champions prey to all sorts of unwanted ironies.

The eldest Ó hAilpín brother Seán Óg has been the one with a top-class football cv - enhanced last month by a startlingly good debut International Rules series - but he's too old and ruled himself out when speculation linked him with a move Down Under.

So a hurling team has become the club side most affected by the occasional drift of Gaelic athletes to Australian Rules. Although Na Piarsaigh's manager Joe O'Leary - understandably frustrated - lambasted the International Rules series, it should be pointed out that no player capped by Ireland has been head hunted by an AFL club.

The Australian game is so different and the demands of the oval ball so challenging that Setanta Ó hAilpín is the oldest Irish player to have ever been recruited and the only one with a high-profile intercounty - in his case, hurling - career behind him.

Colm O'Rourke is a former Ireland coach and a close follower of the AFL-GAA experiment. He accepts that the movement of players has the potential to cause friction.

"I had a chat with Kevin Sheahan, who's the AFL's talent manager, and he said that the Australian clubs need to take a softly, softly approach because if there's a flood of players out of Ireland that will create problems."

So far the main grumbling has come from those who have always been hostile to the international connection between the two indigenous football codes. Yet the connection between the AFL and GAA is probably the best guarantee of restraint should Australian clubs decide that Gaelic games are a vast, untapped resource.

"My view," says O'Rourke, "is that fellas who aren't paid are totally free agents and if they want to follow their dream of being full-time sportsmen, good luck to them. And people shouldn't do anything to try and dissuade them. As manager of my club I'd be the first to wish anyone going away the very best of luck.

"The vast majority will come back anyway but like Anthony Tohill and Brian Stynes, the experience will have helped them become better Gaelic footballers."

Tohill doesn't believe that the migration of players poses any great danger for the GAA.

"I don't think so. If you got one or two every so often that would the maximum. The GAA has nothing to fear. A lot of intercounty footballers want to maximise their potential, which means devoting your life to it in a way that you can't as an amateur because you're holding down a job. In Gaelic you can't operate at that level but you're still talking a very small number of potential recruits."

One brake on the process is that by the time players get to the elite level of intercounty competition and see the attractions of the professional lifestyle, they are considered too old to make the switch.

Leigh Matthews is one of the Australian game's greatest coaches. Over the past three years he led the Brisbane Lions to successive Premierships, only missing out on an historic four-in-a-row in this year's final and also took charge of Australia in the 1998 international series.

He believes that whereas the game could maybe take converts a little older, realistically there's little margin to recruit established performers.

"I wouldn't say that the early 20s is too old. It's only from observation - because I haven't worked with a club that has brought down Irish players - but I feel it takes a couple of years to master the oval ball and the rules of what is a different game. So he's got to come here, learn the game and still have enough years in hand for a career."

Talent isn't the problem. O'Rourke believes that the top minor footballers in Ireland would adapt very successfully to Australian Rules once they decided to commit to the discipline of a professional lifestyle.

"If they're young enough going over there's no reason why they can't do well. Provided they've played to a high level they'll have a broader range of movements than their Australian counterparts, more flexibility. If you take the best 18 or 19 year olds it's not unreasonable that you could have a dozen top fellas who would make it there."

Matthews says that the qualities of Gaelic players are recognised but that not all AFL clubs commit themselves to checking talent over here.

"Some clubs scout in Ireland and from what we can see Irish players with agility, speed, stamina and height have plenty to offer once they get used to it. Jimmy Stynes was excellent, Seán Wight (a former Kerry minor) was excellent and more recently Tadhg Kennelly has got a lot of attention. But only a handful have actually done that."

The three success stories mentioned by Matthews all left for Australia as soon as they were finished at minor level. This requires unusual single-mindedness, something O'Rourke feels is increasingly rare in modern teenagers.

"There's the distance. You are starting a whole new life. Most young fellas are molly-coddled these days and prefer to stick around here. A lot of lads here are still children at 18."

That the trend shows no sign of quickening is little consolation to Na Piarsaigh the club that has been struck twice by lightning. It does provide some reassurance for the GAA in general but ultimately there's very little the association can do if its players want to make a full-time career in another sport.