INTERNATIONAL RULES IRELAND v AUSTRALIA:AT YESTERDAY'S unveiling of his Test panel which will next week launch the defence of the Cormac McAnallen Trophy in this year's international series, Ireland manager Anthony Tohill revealed Paul Galvin had not been considered for the series but denied there had been a Kerry boycott of the series.
The panel contains two players from the county, Tadhg Kennelly and Tommy Walsh, but both are based in the AFL, with the Sydney Swans and St Kilda respectively.
There had been suggestions that Tohill’s forthright criticism as an analyst on the Sunday Game of the incident involving Galvin and Cork’s Eoin Cadogan during the championship had prompted a Kerry backlash.
“We felt we wouldn’t be asking Paul,” said the manager. “To be fair to him we didn’t want to waste his time and we thought the right thing was to let it go for this season.”
Two current Kerry players, Declan O’Sullivan and Kieran Donaghy, had attended some of the trials but club commitments – both feature in this weekend’s county finals – prevented them from becoming fully involved.
“Their clubs are in the latter stages of the championship,” said the manager, “and the lads desperately wanted to win a club title and we have to respect that decision and appreciate their honesty. You’d love to be able to consider them but they have club commitments and they want to see those out.”
Overall the panel is a new-look selection, the 22 players split evenly between those with experience of the international game and newcomers. Captain Steven McDonnell is among the most experienced, having made his debut in the 2003 series.
Of those who might have been selected if available, the McMahon brothers from Tyrone, Joe and Justin, who played a lead role in the success in Australia two years ago, were according to the manager, not fit enough for the trials and Setanta Ó hAilpín was unable to make it home for the trials after his extended season with Carlton.
Down’s Benny Coulter, another veteran of the international game, is injured but a vacancy has been kept open for him, with Offaly’s Niall McNamee, one of the standby list, a front runner for the first Test if Coulter’s hamstring doesn’t recover.
One new development is the number of players, six, with experience of the AFL. As well as Kennelly and Walsh, Michael Shields, Martin Clarke, Brendan Murphy and Colm Begley have all played in Australia.
“It is huge for us,” said Tohill of that experience. “When you see the players and bring them into the situation where you are having trial matches and you bring players in who are really fresh to the game and haven’t played it before and you pit them against players who have played it for a number of years.
“Then you throw in fellas who have played Gaelic at the top level and then they are playing professional AFL it doesn’t take a genius to work out that players who have played both are suited to play this game so it is no surprise that we have six players who have experience in both codes.”
The major adaptation Irish players have to make in the international game is the tackle, which impacts on the game both for those in possession and defending.
“The tackle is a big issue,” according to Tohill. “For us it is a big challenge. There are two sides to it. It is taking the tackle from Australia in a way that it’s not an affront to your manhood just because someone tackles you.
“You need to get up and get on with it and prepare yourself to be tackled again, and again, and again and responding to it in the right way. Making the tackles is the other side of it.
“We are trying to work on both aspects of that. With the short period of time we have and even the players with AFL experience, we will never replicate and get out lads to the level where Australia are at because they are born and reared tackling from a young age.
“Don’t waste your energy rolling around the ground wrestling. That’s no part to play in this. Our reaction to being tackled in the past wasn’t right and we are working on that to make sure it is right throughout this Test series.”
Another element of the international game that is alien to Irish players is the quick rotation of the interchange.
“It’s a big part of it. It’s still alien to a lot of our players because we don’t have it in the GAA.
“There are 10 potential interchanges per quarter. That’s a lot of changes. You’ll know from watching the game how disjointed it can get out there once people start making interchanges and players don’t even know who they are supposed to be marking in around the central areas of the pitch.
“It’s a key area. I know it’s an area that before the Australians were a little bit concerned with the restriction going on the interchange, but now it’s interesting that they are talking about putting a restriction on the interchange in their own game.”
Standby Players
Emmet Bolton (Kildare); Gary Brennan (Clare); Gary Connaughton (Westmeath); Benny Coulter (Down); Eamonn Fennell (Dublin); Johnny McCarthy (Limerick); Niall McNamee (Offaly).
