Injuries weaken “fearless” Irish

JOHN O’KEEFE knows exactly what’s required from his 23-man squad, if Ireland are to maintain their record of never having lost an away series to Australia in the International Rules competition.

Their actual game-plan may be a closely guarded secret, but in essence it will be all about achieving a high level of accurate kick passing, and moving the ball forward at pace.

However, O'Keefe must accomplish this without Seamus Moynihan, Darragh Ó Sé, and Trevor Giles along with Darren Fay, Finbarr Cullen, Glen Ryan, and Anthony Tohill who backboned previous winning teams. And, to add to O'Keefe's woes, Declan Browne is out of action due to injury sustained at training on Tuesday.

"With players like Dessie Dolan, Benny Coulter, and Steven McDonnell all 'out and out' corner-forwards we do have cover. But, I don't think we have the kind of class that Declan was giving us with his ability to kick three-pointers," he commented. "And the outlook for him is gloomy."

The Irish manager acknowledged that apart from coaching his players to limit the effectiveness of the Australian tackling, he has to help them develop an understanding of the inter-change rule.

"The fact of being taken off in a game is not in the psyche of a Gaelic footballer, particularly these players who were never taken off in their lives.

"What you want to do is keep the speed of the game going right through the 80 minutes, which is a very difficult thing to do. It means getting fresh legs in consistently. It is an area of the game we really need to improve in."

"Generally what we like to do is try to keep our key players particularly in the full-back line and possibly in the full-forward line on the field as long as possible. The same would apply to one or two key players up the middle as well, like Kieran McGeeney or Graham Canty, or maybe Ciaran McManus who is a very fit player.

"Maybe they will get a longer time on the field, but a lot hinges on whether you get tackled or not. If you take a big 'hit' it knocks a lot out of you!"

Apart from being full professionals, many of the Australians have played with the round ball before, but O'Keefe said: "The most important thing about this Australian team, that I can gauge, is that they are highly motivated this time.

"And, I believe they really want to put on a show, particularly with the Rugby World Cup on."

However, he sounded one word of warning. "We're not anxious for a physical encounter. To me, the way to go in for the ball is to go in fearlessly and bravely and not stand back.

"If you do that, you'll be okay."

My view is that O'Keefe's weakened team faces a major challenge. The bottom line is that only ten of the available 26 players took part in the last series.

And only five of these (along with Sean Marty Lockhart, who has a proven record in this competition) remain from the successful side of two years ago. On the credit side, anything is possible if the team plays according to plan.