Friday will tell whether the current atmosphere of goodwill continues to sustain the Rules series, writes Séan Moran

IT'S A busy time in Melbourne. The spring racing festival is in progress with the Melbourne Cup being run next Tuesday and the Derby this weekend. Racing dominates the sports coverage in the city, reaming out endless supplements and interviews and speculation.

Through the noise of hooves on turf intrudes the second International Rules Test. To be fair it won't do too much intruding but there should be a good crowd at the MCG on Friday, even if likely to be insufficient to take the aggregate attendance over 100,000 - the bench mark for a very successful series and achieved five times in the 10 years.

Australia is a sports-enthusiastic country and that's reflected in its media. This week in Melbourne the International Rules series gets dutiful coverage, more or less depending on the outlet, as befits a sporting curiosity involving the most popular field game in the state.

There is the usual range of negative opinions from mocking ("I hear the tickets are being flogged at half-price.") to scornful ("hand-holding exercise") to irritably agnostic ("what's the point - what's it all about, like?"). But most people appear moderately interested.

The large Irish media presence means the game is well publicised at home but in a year when the series is in Ireland our coverage wouldn't be as extensive, simply because there would be other things to do and no need for sports editors to get their money's worth out of sending lads half-way around the world.

We're not immune to selective reporting. For instance the Australian newspaper, which has zero interest in the series and has yet to carry a line about it, had significant, centre-page and picture-led coverage from Paramatta of Ireland's rugby league World Cup match against Tonga.

Yet most of the reporters - this one included - in the press pack travelling with the International Rules team couldn't have told you the match was on.

One of the most puzzling aspects of the hostility to International Rules is that for it to stir such impassioned hostility, the game must be perceived to be doing harm in some way. Yet it's difficult to see how this could be the case. It costs nothing or, rather, is self-supporting. Players from both the GAA and AFL value the opportunity to play for their country. Those who don't, stay clear of the whole exercise.

The worm of doubt has even eaten into the sensibilities of some of the travelling media but the arguments that it's artificial - being played only twice a year at most and having no independent existence outside of international level - appear to ignore the contrivance at the heart of every organised sport.

They certainly ignore the idea at the heart of the international game: two indigenous sports maintaining a relationship across the globe based on a game that is a hybrid of each organisation's distinct code.

It tries to showcase something of what makes both types of football skilful and appealing even if it can't faithfully reflect everything in the constituent games.

The cultural exchange between the GAA and AFL has been worthwhile from both points of view, the technical staffs learning from each other by exchanging and adapting ideas. The series gives exposure to both organisations at a time of year when their activities aren't otherwise in the public eye.

And that's it, nothing grander.

Obviously there have been difficulties. The violence of previous series was unacceptable not just because it was at times dangerous or unseemly viewing but because the last thing the GAA needed, given the travails of its own disciplinary system, was further evidence disregard for rules pays off. International Rules had become a reflection of means justifying ends and couldn't be maintained on that basis. The game suffers from extremes of reaction: too much misbehaviour and it's unacceptable; not enough and it's boring.

The latter failing is of course preferable. That the players helped each other up after collisions during last week's first Test in Perth and shook hands at the end of the match - rather than laughing at and jeering each other, as has been known to happen - has been portrayed in some media here as a pathetic betrayal of the game's visceral appeal.

International Rules can be played perfectly well without having to explore grey areas of physicality.

It is a paradox that what defines a disciplined sport is the ability to survive indiscipline. Rules have to be enforced consistently and players have to respect them. When that doesn't happen, the sports in question must have methods of imposing meaningful punishment.

International Rules doesn't have that luxury. Serious punishment has been accepted as a way to deal with infractions but in the current circumstances the game wouldn't survive a breakdown in discipline on a par with what happened in 2006 or even 2005.

One of the sobering aspects of those recent controversies has been the way in which all of the goodwill generated by the series between 1998 and 2003 was insufficient to protect the game against the consequences of lawless behaviour over two or three years. As a result it nearly disappeared.

There is another reason that indiscipline renders the game impossible. In the accommodations made by the two sports all of the physical concessions come from the Australians. That is how it has to be; they after all are professionals, as a result of which they are stronger and better conditioned.

Their sport is more aggressive - even if they have tended to exaggerate what's permissible in their own game in order to excuse misbehaviour in internationals - so Ireland's players need the protection of the rules. Step outside that framework and the game is unsustainable.

Friday evening will tell whether the current atmosphere of bonhomie and goodwill continues to sustain the series. As things stand the sustenance is all a bit hand-to-mouth.

smoran@irish-times.ie