‘Seismic’ changes to keep Rules series alive

THE GAA will not now be meeting their AFL counterparts in Dubai in January as planned, but Nickey Brennan stressed yesterday that the association would not be dragging its feet over the future of the International Rules series.

The GAA president was unwilling to discuss a timeline regarding the issue yesterday but added that one would be decided upon at the next meeting of the Central Council on the weekend of January 8/9th.

Between now and then, the plan is to draw up a document detailing what the GAA feel will be the “fundamental” issues which need addressing and Brennan admitted that “seismic changes” would be needed in order for the concept to survive.

“Assuming the Central Council approves that document we will send it to the AFL and await for a response for them but we will be sending it to them on the understanding that that has to be the basis for any discussion. Then we talk about a series going forward.”

Discipline, or the lack of it, is obviously the prime concern. Talk of banning the tackle has already been mooted with other suggestions like scrapping the mark aimed at increasing the pace of the entertainment on show.

“All I’ll say is that there is no question but that rule changes will have to be made,” said Brennan. “It is clear that one of the big problems is discipline, the application of discipline and the attitude towards discipline.

“To bring that to the forefront we clearly have to have some rule changes. What they might be, I don’t know.”

Though the reaction to the postponement of the 2007 series has been met with disappointment in Australia, Brennan believes that the AFL has come around to accepting that radical changes are needed.

Brennan and AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou spent a considerable amount of time discussing the matter by phone last Wednesday night and the GAA will be canvassing opinion from both players and county officials in the next month before drawing up their document.

While many a county official has spoken out against continuing the project, the players and Irish team management have come out strongly in favour of it although Brennan said claims that they had ‘saved’ the series with their strong views were somewhat exaggerated.

“It is fair to say that the team management and players were in favour of continuing the series but with significant rule changes. We presented a scenario over the weekend that the only basis for continuing the series was that the 2007 series at both junior and senior would be suspended.”

While the decision to abandon the senior tests was well flagged, the decision to call off the junior version was less certain, especially with an Australian team already pencilled in to visit Ireland next spring.

“There’s actually a group of people who would feel that the junior tour is also a problem in that it brings the possibility of recruiting players and whatnot,” said the president.

“We need to review all of that. It’s all about relationships with the AFL. There are aspects of the relationship with the AFL that the GAA want to continue as well, like matters concerning player welfare and prevention of injuries. We won’t prejudge what the Aussies will say until they see the document.”