Melbourne fiesta to end in Holy Orders

THEY are calling it the biggest weekend in Melbourne’s sporting history. It began yesterday with the deciding match in the two-test International Rules series between Ireland’s amateur Gaelic footballers and Australia’s professional ‘footie’ giants, continues today when the same two nations collide in the Rugby World Cup and culminates on Tuesday with the most celebrated event in the Aussie sporting calendar, the Melbourne Cup.

An estimated 200,000 fans have descended on the sprawling Victoria state capital, which has a population of 3.2 million, and the many Irish bars in the city predictably have never known anything like it.

“I have never seen Melbourne so busy,” confirmed taxi driver Leonid Tikorov. “There are Irish everywhere. I have been driving a taxi for 26 years and there’s been nothing as busy as this before.