World Footy News

According to reports Collingwood will find themselves playing the Blues in front of 80,000 fans later this year - but it won’t be "We are the Navy Blues" echoing from opposition supporters - rather “Molly Malone… crying cockles and mussels alive alive oh” from the Dublin fans decked out in their Sky Blue team jerseys. And it also seems that Australia versus Ireland in International Rules could resume later this year or 2009.

Collingwood president Eddie McGuire is quoted in Melbourne's Herald Sun talking of the rationale behind the proposed match:

"We are doing this as a goodwill tour, to help mend the wounds from the previous couple of encounters," McGuire said. "That left a sour taste everywhere, and the GAA and the AFL are both very supportive of our endeavours….. The people in Dublin are talking about a sell-out crowd of 80,000 people to see the biggest team in Ireland take on the biggest team in Australia".

The AFL website elaborates on the story also and quotes further comments of McGuire’s:

"We want to get the spirit right. We're not pulling a disparate side together with an overly nationalistic coach at the helm who might get a bit overexcited by the occasion….. We're talking about an exchange of sporting ideals and a genuine cultural event. I know it sounds very schoolboy, but I think it has a lot of merit".

Although the last coach of Australia, Kevin Sheedy (but then McGuire could’ve been referring to others like Dermott Brereton), may take umbrage at such comments, McGuire has a point. The game would be more an inter-club out of season friendly match than one with national passions fully stirred, though undoubtedly both teams would dearly love to win such an encounter. Lower level games of International Rules have seemingly been played in good spirit.

Not first match involving GAA county

It wouldn’t be the first time a GAA County team competed in a hybrid match. As history shows, the first tour by Australia in 1967 played against that year's All Ireland champions, county Meath, and also against county Mayo in Ireland’s west. In 1968 Meath traveled to Australia and in 1970 county Kerry toured and played a match against an SANFL partial state side at the Norwood Oval in Adelaide and toured again in 1981. The Kerry versus SA (see the Terrace Talk section 1970 DOWN UNDER WITH KERRY) game was in fact half Aussie Rules and then half Gaelic football with change of ball at half time. For the record Kerry matched it with SA with the oval ball and stormed home with the round to win.

Kerry’s performance had losing coach and South Australian football legend, Neil Kerley, who'd predicted the Kerrymen would be anihilated in the first half with the oval ball, eating his words: “I was astonished by the handling and kicking of Kerry but it will still be a long and difficult fight to overcome the doubters and those in opposition to these games”. Those words have proved prophetic as the hybrid concept still has its doubters on both sides of the globe 38 years later.

GAA and AFL presidents meet in Dubai

On that note the leaders of the AFL (Andrew Demetriou) and the Gaelic Athletic Association (Nicky Brennan) met in Dubai on the eve of the AFL’s Collingwood versus Adelaide match to discuss the future of the International Rules series. As Ireland's RTE report, neither side will be making public announcements until having reported back to their respective governing bodies. However the above report on the Dublin versus Collingwood game suggests a resumption late in 2008 as part of the AFL’s 150th year celebrations or in 2009 as part of the GAA’s 125th anniversary could be on the cards.

The debate over Inter-rules continues

Brian Murphy of Setanta Sports puts an Irish for and against argument and comes down on the side of scrapping the series mainly because of the unfairness of Amateurs having to compete with physically stronger Professionals in a body contact sport. It is true that when Kerry defeated South Australia, most if not all of the SANFL players would have had day jobs to front up to the next working day. The AFL players today benefit from 7 days per week focus on football, the Irish have to still front up to their employers or run their businesses.

Setanta Sports also interviewed the GAA’s Paraic Duffy on the eve of the talks in Dubai where he noted that it was in the GAA’s interest to reduce the flood of talent to the AFL to have some working relationship with the AFL and by implication that means reviving the series for which he said there was commitment on both sides.

Through his experiences in the early years of Irish-Australian competition, Neil Kerley became a passionate supporter of the games but as he also has noted, bridging the differences in sporting cultures and on-field rules is always a challenge that have doubters raising legitimate doubts as the decades pass. Still there's probably enough inspiration and entertainment to keep these games going, regularly or fitfully for decades to come too. Meanwhile 83,000 fans in Croke Park perhaps this October will give the concept a boost.