Sober view of International Rules football

AUSTRALIAN coach Kevin Sheedy claims International Rules football is “the fastest game in the world”.

Yet our team includes Michael Voss, a beefy Brisbane retired champion with bad knees. Indeed, there is still a question mark over these hybrid games being called ‘tests’ when it is painfully obvious the Australians are novices with the round ball. ‘Test’ surely implies elite ball-handling skills.

Publicans of Ireland, I implore you to call ‘time, gentlemen, please’ as early as possible when the Australian team are in town. Our last Irish tour was marred by a fondness for the bottle off-field and cowardly biffo on-field.