Aisake won’t be playing for Ireland, says Tohill

AISAKE O hAILPÍN may be the toast of Leeside this week but the Cork full-forward will not be representing his country in the International Rules series later this year, according to Irish manager Anthony Tohill.

“We will be concentrating our energies on looking at inter-county footballers and Irish players that are plying their trade in the AFL,” said the Derryman, when asked about Aisake, who spent three seasons on the books of Carlton in the AFL.

It is just over a month since Aisake declared his interest in playing against Australia.

“I’d definitely be interested,” he said when asked about the Rules series at the end of April.

“Especially if my brother Setanta was playing. It’d be nice to give it a crack. I played Aussie Rules and I played football here. If I was asked I’d definitely think about it anyway and give it crack.”

Meanwhile it was it was announced yesterday that this year’s two International Rules tests will be broadcast by TG4 instead of RTÉ. According to Cooney, the national station was interested in covering the revived series again but the president stressed that the agreement with TG4 was “the best arrangement on this occasions”, though he neglected to add what that meant in financial terms.

The Irish language broadcaster will air an International Rules Gold series for eight or nine weeks in the run-up to the first test in Limerick’s Gaelic Grounds, a game which will kick off a new two-year deal between the GAA and AFL.

Beset by disciplinary issues in years gone by, the series was dropped from the calendar at the AFL’s behest last year but, while Cooney welcomed its return yesterday, he warned that any return to the dark days would see its demise once and for all.

“Of course it will be tough but we don’t want it to go into a situation that happened before, where some of the tackling was outrageous. We don’t want that. As long as it is sporting and the people want to come and see it, I’d be in favour of retaining it.”

The Corkman also revealed that he believes the current furore over water carriers will die down in the coming weeks and added that counties found to be flouting those rules will be punished accordingly.

“I personally have not got any complaints about it, so I don’t know how serious an issue it is, to be honest. When a new regulation comes in there is always a furore, and then it dies down after a period of time and people get on with it.”