Nov 05 2006
Australia 69, Ireland 31
I went ahead and gave Setanta Broadband $10 to watch the game live over the Internet, and while the settings required a bit of tweaking, the service proved surprisingly reliable, and the picture quality was solid for a 300K stream. What a shame the game itself wasn’t the same quality.
It opened with a 10-minute brawl that will get every sports fan in Ireland questioning whether the International Rules series is worth continuing. Once the yellow cards were handed out and everything settled down, the Australians rediscovered the ball-handling skills they lacked in the first game in Galway, and they created countless scoring opportunities for themselves. The Irish team, meanwhile, proved surprisingly careless with the ball, giving it away far too often and finding themselves on the defensive all day. Their inability to score had the announcers asking just how much the quality of Gaelic football players had diminished over the last decade.
It’s the brawling, though, that will get everyone’s attention. Ireland manager Seán Boylan railed on the officials — especially the Aussie official — for handing out yellow cards and not red cards at the start of the game, claiming that the Aussies clearly targeted the best Gaelic players and weren’t punished severely enough for their actions. The commentators for Ireland’s RTE Two network said they have never seen Boylan quite so angry after a match, although that outburst still seemed subdued compared to, say, Dennis Green after the Bears-Cardinals game.
Boylan believed that the fights were a sign that the International Rules series should be discontinued. I still believe this particular code of football has a lot of potential, but you wouldn’t be able to see it in this match. Two consecutive years of thuggery on the part of the Aussies may cause the Gaelic Athletic Association to call the whole thing off, which would leave the Australian Football League with far fewer opportunities to advance its game outside its own national borders. Roger Goodell might want to take note of that.
Ah, well, this was a fun little ozone expedition. I guess I’ll get back to good ol’ American Football now…
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i hope the series never happens again, the only way the aussies win is by thuggery look what happened last week when the aussies played fairly, it must have drove the thugs crazy so they had to go out and get pissed and fight with barmen, yip thats professionalism for ya,
i gottaagree with john we should have an international series with the americans or something, get rid of the aussies, even when they are over here working they r a pain in the ass
look…the irish were simpy outplayed on the day. the push and shove went both ways - they’re all playing for their country - of course it’s fgoing to be a little heated!… but this whole “poor us irish” is wearing a bit thin to be honest.
That “slinging” tackle happens every week in aussie rules - usually no one gets injured…unfortunately Geraghty got injured this time (it’s unfortunate and nobody likes injuries to happen - but I really think it was unlucky and completely coincidental to the comments made during the week)
Maybe there is a misunderstanding about what’s physical and what’s not…Aussie rules IS more physical than gaelic football so of course they’re going to use it to they’re adavantage…..The Irish have better in close handling skills (especially with the round ball) so they should use these skills
So rather than the Irish learning a thing or two from how the aussies played (the aussies have been learning from the irish - just look at how they handled the round ball this match compared to the last)..they would rather just complain about the aussies being thugs…it’s an very insular perspective if you ask me.
And I’m afraid Boylans irrational tirade at the end of the match just amounted to sour grapes.
Personally I found the whole series enthralling - and the way the irish won the last game was fantastic! Bit I’d urge the irish to stop winging just because they lose.
If you’d rather play a game of international rules against Americans - maybe you could mix your game with basketball…at least you wouldn’t complain about the physicality then!
also, for those thining the irish a blameless…poor kids being picked on by the aussie thugs…
http://www.villagemagazine.ie/article.asp?sid=7&sud=17&aid=1229
I don’t think anyone will say the Gaelic footballers weren’t outplayed. Australia was utterly dominant in this game, especially in the third quarter.
The media, however, will focus on the fights, because they marred a series that had been developing into something interesting. This may ultimately torpedo the whole series, and that would be a shame.
BTW, Australian coach Kevin Sheedy claims the Irish started it…
http://afl.com.au/default.asp?pg=news&spg=display&articleid=305813
The Aussies play tough physical agressive footy week in week out, the Irish play a non contact game… enough said. If you have an objective look at the incidents in question you’ll see that blame needs to be attributed fairly evenly to both teams. You’ll also see that the Aussies applied and responded to the the physical pressure with what can only be explained as experience, the Irish on the other hand have no experience with aggressive physical pressure in the professional sense and it showed.