Seán Moran looks at why the GAA seems set to abandon the underage series.

Indications from the weekend's Central Council meeting that the GAA is set to abandon the under-17 International Rules series with Australia are almost as depressing as that body's self-interested decision to prevent urgent - but not exactly hasty - consideration of the Strategic Review Committee report, which just happens to recommend a shake-up of Central Council.

When the international project was resumed four years ago, it was to include an under-17 tour between an Ireland selection and the Australian Rules Academy team. There have been three series to date with Australia winning all of them, emphatically at home and more competitively here.

At last Saturday's Central Council meeting Tyrone delegate Jim Treacy raised the matter of AFL clubs recruiting young Irish footballers. He cited approaches made to some of Tyrone's All-Ireland winning minors before last September's final replay.

GAA president Seán McCague said he "detected strong feelings within the association that it (the series) won't be continued". The die would appear to be cast in relation to this matter. Yet no evidence was adduced to establish a link between the under-17 series and this recruitment.

It's important to make three points about the Tyrone representations on this subject. Firstly, the county has always been hostile to the international project. In December 2000, county secretary Dominic McCaughey launched an attack on the whole concept, which he said at the time "does nothing to further the promotion or development of Gaelic football" adding that it was time "to declare that there is no future in this type of series".

Interestingly the thrust of his argument was directed at the senior internationals rather than the under-17s and the reference to the recruitment issue was general rather than specific to under-17s.

Secondly, because of this aversion to International Rules, the county does not co-operate in suggesting players for consideration in the international context at underage level. The significance of this is illustrated by Treacy's complaint, which was directed at the autumn trials conducted by AFL clubs in Ireland rather than the under-17 series.

In other words the main chance of recruiting Tyrone players was through these trials and not an international series in which they are not encouraged to participate.

Although a full-time GAA coach was cited as having made the approaches, the trials are not official and have no such sanction. More importantly they have been organised for quite a while and pre-date by nearly two decades the under-17 series. From Jim Stynes to Dermot McNicholl to Niall Buckley, players have been scouted in this way. And if the AFL want to continue conducting trials, there's nothing the GAA can do to stop it.

Thirdly, since the internationals were inaugurated in 1999, AFL clubs have recruited four Irish players: Tadgh Kennelly, Nicholas Walsh, Bernie Collins and Kevin Devine. Two of them, Kennelly and Walsh, had played for Ireland in International Rules but the other two hadn't. In other words even in the time since the under-17 series started, only half the players recruited have actually a history of participation.

Three years of under-17 internationals have seen two players get a crack at a professional sporting career denied them at home. And because of this - plus an amount of hysterical misrepresentation - the opportunity for youngsters to play for their country is to be withdrawn, to say nothing of the worthwhile chance to measure up against their full-time peers in Australia.