Not bad, even without dust-ups

ALL THIS serious business must be catching on. For all the sombre mood, the discussion of being in the last-chance saloon and one wrong move away from ending it all, we could well have stumbled across a repeat of Questions and Answers pondering the budget yesterday, when it was in fact Michael Lyster and co chatting about the International Rules Series.

A game famous mainly for everyone tuning in hoping for a few schamozzles while simultaneously denouncing them as a disgrace. Martin Carney said that they were playing for the future of the series; Kieran McGeeney reckoned the accountability aspect would help keep things relatively clean (cue disappointed punters around the country).

So what’d we learn from this? Well, not an awful pile we didn’t already know. If the opening quarter brought to mind that overly-sanitised dullness of the opener in Salthill a couple of years ago, the rest of the game actually wasn’t half bad, giving at least some suggestion that the concept can be vaguely entertaining without the adrenaline boost of a few decent dust-ups. That Ireland still haven’t quite figured out the tackle stands out as a pretty important factor through a stalemate opening 18 minutes – and for the whole game in fact – as they coughed up ball after ball by bringing it into contact while the Aussies have their own problems with the round ball.