O'Keeffe banking on more support

JOHN O'KEEFFE and his players will be depending on increased Irish support for the crucial second test in the International Rules Series in the MCG tomorrow night.

However, he acknowledges that it will require a significant improvement from his team from the first test a week ago which they lost 56/46. Specifically, he will be depending on an increased return in point-scoring if they are to prevent Australia from winning a home series at the tenth attempt.

After the Perth game, Australia have edged ahead with eleven wins to Ireland's ten (and two games drawn). And, it means that Gary Lyon is now in line to equal Colm O'Rourke's feat of achieving home-and-away test successes (in 1998-'99).

O'Keeffe set out his stall very clearly at a joint Ireland/Australia media briefing at the AFL headquarters. More than anything else, he said, his team hadn't been good at their own specialist kicking skills. Accordingly, these two key issues have been addressed all week. Another relates to improving their kick-outs and, in turn, planning a strategy to attempt to limit the effectiveness of the Australian kicking from goal. The hope of the Irish manager is that having four training sessions in the MCG will help his young players "The most important aspect of the game will be kick-outs from both sides. We realise that it all comes down to pressure by the opposition. The Australians have obviously done their homework on how to depress our kick-out, but we have worked on different ways of trying to improve it," he said. "The only thing, you can analyse it to death and end up putting a lot of pressure on your goalie. We have to have confidence in our goalkeeper, but obviously, we would be hoping for a better return from our kick-out."

Clearly, another concern will be limiting the influence of the big Australian full-forward, Barry Hall. It was no surprise to O'Keeffe after having watched him in the warm-up game. "I could see straight away he was an exceptional player. He has mobility and speed for such a big player and his control over the round ball was impressive. We need to counteract that, it's a major problem for us."

Team captain Graham Canty agrees that the experience gained in Perth can bring the Irish players on considerably. "The team as a whole learned a lot, because so many players were going in for the first time. They picked up a lot, like the speed of the game. And, we got to know each other's games a bit more.

"No one player could say he was happy with his performance. It wasn't a case of the Australians having a strong physical presence, just simply that our kicking was very poor all over the pitch. Everyone will hold their hand up. We all did so three or four times; if you did that at home you'd be disgusted with yourself. O'Keeffe says his priority from the start will be to settle early in the game and remain competitive. It won't be a case of frantically trying to wipe out the ten points deficit from last week.

"Hopefully, we can be competitive all the way. Ideally, we'd like it to be close going into the last 20 minutes. That would make for one hell of a final quarter."

O'Keeffe confirmed that Laois star Tom Kelly will have recovered from a thigh strain in time to take his place. Likewise, Dessie Dolan will be fully fit. "Declan Browne is the one I feel sorry for. In a warm-up game, you hope your players will come through, but he hasn't responded quickly enough to treatment. He'll be fine in a few weeks, but it's tough luck on him because he is a really special player.