SIDELINE CUT: The GAA are flying in the face of all sporting logic by deciding to continue with the failed experiment that is the International Rules series
NOBODY CAN ever accuse the dear old GAA of not doing its bit to foster the Irish cultural links with Australia. After a series of meetings held in the sort of exotic locations one normally associates with G8 conferences, the home association has been pleased to announce that the International Rules series will motor on for a few more years yet, albeit with a more fragile mechanism.
Undeterred by the blatantly half-hearted interest the Australians showed in keeping the compromise game alive - it took great persuasion before the AFL powerbrokers agreed to field a team for two Tests instead of one - the Irish will travel to Perth and Melbourne next October to resume the madcap hybrid game with their brawny cousins from Down Under.
The Rules was conceived as a noble experiment and there have been instances here and there when genuine sport has broken out, like sunshine through ominous clouds, between the bouts of violence that have characterised this game that nobody plays. If the old imperialists who sent ships crammed with Irish in shackles down to Botany Bay some 200 years ago could steal a glimpse at this modern-day cultural exchange, with rugged, chisel-jawed Australians flinging their pale, quarrelsome neighbours around like rag dolls, then those whiskery lawmakers of Empire would raise their glasses and declare themselves right all along. The International Rules is just lawlessness masquerading as sport. There is a football involved, unquestionably, and scores aplenty and admirable athleticism, but the enduring appeal of the game, if all parties are honest about it, is that it operates on the precipice of anarchy. Throw in the nationalistic dimension, with perceived slights and insults, and you have a contest played twice a year by revolving groups of players who have had a matter of weeks to acquaint themselves with the (tenuous) rules and you have a recipe that would be farcical if it were not dangerous.
The tackle on Meath's Graham Geraghty during the last series was surely the definitive proof this experiment should be written off as one that has failed. The chemicals weren't mixing. The ironic thing was the Geraghty tackle was one of the few legitimate challenges of a series marked by constant rows and punch -ups and strong-arm tackles around mainly Irish necks. But the Irishman simply did not have sufficient knowledge to deal with the alien situation of being bodychecked and flipped to the ground with his arms pinned to his sides by his tackler and he was knocked unconscious by the force of the fall. When he woke up, Geraghty shrugged it off and that was that. It can, of course, be argued that injuries happen in all sports. But most sports have an opportunity to grow organically and to become refined over the years.
International Rules, hauled into existence for a fortnight every autumn, can never have that luxury. It is doomed. The Aussies are a fairly agreeable lot and seem to regard the whole show as a bit of a lark. But was I alone in detecting a sense of smugness about the visitors last time? Was there not the impression they kind of enjoyed beating up on the Irish and beating us at our own game for good measure?
Australia is a magnificent place. That is probably why the abiding ambition of most Irish school-leavers is to go and live Down Under for at least a year. Australia has become a pilgrimage, much like thumbing to the Lisdoonvarna festival was in the cash-strapped 1980s. There is a fair chance that if you go and camp out under Eyre's Rock for a year, you will meet some lad from your hometown wandering along with third-degree sunburn and one of those hats with corkscrews jangling from it, probably listening to the Munster championship on a mobile phone while his mother holds the family receiver to the television at the other end of the world.
The Australians and the Irish like each other - although you can never tell this from watching International Rules. The main reason the Australians like the Irish so much is that they consider us formidable drinkers. The Irish like the absurdly cheap Australian froth, the innumerable bar/construction jobs, the boundless optimism, the sunshine and the chance to take our pale limbs into their oceans for a spot of snorkelling and scuba diving. It seems everyone is scuba diving nowadays.
Many Irish car commuters must have almost lost control if they heard the drive-time radio host/popular figure George Hook this week talking about the joys of scuba diving off the Great Barrier Reef. One imagines the scene, the rugby man fanning nimbly through exotic shoals and clicking his camera furiously when all of a sudden he comes upon a great white shark, the Hookster elated at this miraculous encounter with the ocean's most feared and the fish fine too following a few weeks of counselling.
Australia has it all: the great outdoors, sport, Sydney, that vast, unknowable interior they call the Bush - the equivalent of our Carlow. And, they say, you can visit the actual set of Home and Away. But it is a more extreme place. I remember reading a Sydney Morning Herald story one day about this guy on honeymoon who went for a swim and had his head bitten off by some fish or other. It ought to have been enough to cause the kind of panic-stricken water evacuation not seen since Chief Brody was patrolling Amity beach. But if anything, the Australians swam farther out that weekend.
The Aussies are a tough breed and they always seem anxious to demonstrate that whenever the International shenanigans are rolled out. It could well be, of course, that the trip to Australia is the chief attraction for keeping this peculiar arrangement alive, and if so, the GAA should come out and say it, because there has been no other convincing argument advanced for sticking with it.
My own favourite moment from the Rules dates back to 2004, seconds before the Croke Park Test when Marty Morrissey was welcoming viewers in much the same tone as Gay Byrne used to coo and chortle at the beginning of the Rose of Tralee. Alarmingly, Marty was cut across by his Australian colleague in the cockpit, who was in such a state of high dudgeon you felt certain a knife-wielding maniac was bearing down upon them. The Aussie began screaming through his microphone: "Oh, it's on already. THERE IS A FIGHT ALREADY! IT'S ON BEFORE THE GAME! Have a look at this! We expected the fireworks to begin . . . spineless and gutless is what the Australians have been called all week and they've come out ready to go."
That was perhaps the apotheosis of the International Rules, when the Aussies began brawling before the ball was even thrown in and the crowd cheered rabidly, stunned by this sensationally quick bang for their buck. The fight between two nations with an historic reputation for brawling is at the heart of whatever appeal the International Rules has and it is hard to see how that is going to change. Perhaps, over time, the GAA's dogged persistence with this mongrel game will be vindicated and a more refined and workable sport will emerge. But I doubt it.
