2013 Rules Series raises concerns

Paraic Duffy admits this autumn’s International Rules series could be a hard sell because of Australia’s decision to send an indigenous-only selection.

Both the GAA and the AFL are committed to one more two-year cycle, with Ireland staging this year’s series before the return series Down Under next year.

However the future of the project could hinge on whether the public will go to a game that isn’t necessarily Ireland v Australia.

“I actually think it will be a very strong team they’ll send,” said Duffy, “but it does pose a problem in terms of marketing: are we playing Australia or not?

“I got a call from [AFL chief exec] Andrew Demetriou out of the blue back in May. He said he wanted to raise something with me, that they were thinking of sending an indigenous team this year, what did I think? I said, ‘I can’t answer that, you’ve taken me by surprise. Off the top of my head the big concern would be promoting the game and getting people to come but I’ll certainly not say no to it’.

“I asked him to put something in writing that I could bring to management committee, so he did.

“We discussed it and felt that in the end, it’s up to the Australians to send whatever team they want. But it’s very hard to say it’s a team representative of all teams and players in the AFL because it’s not. Their argument was the indigenous players were very keen on it. I suspect that the last few years they’ve had trouble getting their best players to play and they want to recognise the contribution of the indigenous players to the AFL. But we do have concerns.

“We run the series at no cost to the GAA. The money we make here [from a home series] helps fund the return series, so it’s up to us to make the series as profitable as possible because going to Australia is very expensive. We’ve always managed to make a small profit but if people don’t come [this time] that’s a huge financial challenge for us.”