International rules farce

Pardon us for breaking through the wall of publicity encouraging all sports fans to get in early to get their fill of Gaelic-Australian football. [Do we hear the sound of yawning?]

 

Mike Sheahan makes a couple of quite valid points in his column yesterday. Who knows which AFL players are in the squad for the Irish series? Or where the “Tests” will be played and when? And we’ll add our own question: Who the hell knows what the “rules” are?

 

We’ll give the AFL points for persistence, but the concept of blending two vaguely similar national games to create a series where national pride is supposedly on the line has surely run its race and should be mercifully put down as soon as possible.

 

There’s an old management consulting adage that suggests a camel is a horse designed by a committee. Well, the AFL-GAA International Rules series is an ugly camel.

 

The differences between AFL and Gaelic are simply too large to credibly blend the two games together. It comes down to the issue of tackling — a staple skill of the Aussie game and approached with greater intensity every year. It is laughable that the AFL expect players who are trained to tackle fiercely to back off. It’s even more laughable for the GAA to expect their blokes, who play a light-contact sport, to suddenly approach every contest with red-blooded vigour.

 

There’s no doubting the courage of the Irish players, but the task confronting them is insurmountable. A round ball and a crossbar don’t make up for tackling, albeit that it’s toned down. Lest there be any doubting the scope of the task, consider how many Irish players have carved out a steady career in AFL even when they were living and breathing it every day. Four. Jim Stynes, Sean Wight, Tadgh Kennelly and Marty Clark. That’s it! Setanta O’hAilpin was, in the end, despite playing eighty games, a curiosity rather than a genuine AFL player, and no-one else has come within a bull’s roar.

 

Time for the canvas curtain to be erected and the lead aspro to be administered to this hotch-potch.

 

Ed: Let’s ask another question: How is it that any contest against a foreign team seems to be tagged with the moniker “Test” these days? Test cricket is called that because that’s what it is — a test. We think it’s an affront for sports like the rugbies and netball, as much as others less lofty, to award themselves the accolade. For hybrid events like AFL-GAA International Rules to call themselves “Tests” is a travesty.