Bouts of football breaking out between fights

IT was not so much the Rumble in the Jungle as the Choker at the Croker.

Australia and Ireland once more came together to try and squeeze the life out of the International Rules Series with a display of nastiness last seen when the Black and Tans were in town.

With bouts of football breaking out between fights and melees, seven players were yellow carded in the opening quarter with Australian new boy Chance Bateman and Kerry’s Paul Galvin punished before the ball was thrown in.

Graham Geraghty, Colm Begley, Tadhg Kenneally and Shane Ryan headed the Irish casualty list. Geraghty’s injury was the most worrying with the Meath man taken unconscious from the field with an oxygen mask strapped to his face.

But there was little in the way of apologies from his Aussie opponent.

“I tackled the bloke, I got up,” said Danyle Pearce afterwards. “I asked about him after the game and I heard he was still unconscious. I’m just going to enjoy the win for the night.”

The bitterness was not confined to the field of play. In the post match press conference, Australia’s Irish-born coach, Jim Stynes was adamant that the hosts were not blameless.

“If you look at the game in the first quarter you will find out what players were hurt and how they were hurt. I’m pretty sure you’ll see some of the Australian players hurt badly and head-butted and kneed in the back on a couple of occasions. And I think at times, obviously the Australian players get fed up with that. I think Ireland were the aggressors last week and this week. You’ve already had one person reported and the first two yellow cards were Irish. Some of our players were hurt and some of them were deliberately hurt.”

However, GAA and AFL chiefs remain convinced the concept has a future.

GAA President Nickey Brennan said: “I think we have to reflect and review what happened but I am extremely disappointed with what we saw in the first quarter.”

The chief executive of the AFL, Andrew Demetriou, admitted: “After quarter-time there was excellent football played by our players, but you couldn’t honestly sit there and say that the first quarter was a great advertisement.”

By the way, the Aussies secured the series with a 109-79 aggregate triumph after a 69-31 win yesterday