Future of series put in doubt as Aussies go down without a fight
And tumbled. And then tumbled some more to the point that Ireland were no longer facing an Australian selection but history.
In an embarrassing disparity of skill and work-rate, Paul Earley’s men coasted to the biggest winning margin in the 13 two-Test series since 1998.
They achieved that as early as the eighth minute of the third quarter when Conor McManus, himself a record breaker with the highest individual score in a Test with 24 points, kicked one of his four overs.
That eclipsed the 65-point margin set by Ireland two years ago, but they weren’t done there, breaking the 100-point mark just over halfway through the final quarter to eclipse the record Test total set by Australia in 2005.
By the end, they had also beaten the biggest previous Test victory by 35 points — the 44-point win by Ireland in Melbourne two years ago.
Earley’s side won’t get the credit they merit because of the meekness of the opposition but in this form they would have beaten almost anything the AFL sent their way.
Instead, the Australians delivered an all-indigenous crew whose collective performance over the two games was abysmal.
If their plan all along was to sting clubs into releasing their top players next year for fear of more patriotic shame at home, it might just have worked.
AFL chief executive Andrew Demetriou wasn’t on this trip. Maybe he sensed what was about to unfold.
But this looked and felt a lot more like Ireland dishing out an unmerciful punishment to the AFL for their decision to treat the initiative between the two bodies with such disdain.
The series was won in Cavan but this second Test was over and done by the 12th minute of the first quarter when McManus scored the first of Ireland’s six goals, a record total of six-pointers in a Test.
By that stage Ireland were 12 ahead on the night, 34 on aggregate, and the Australians were tasting their dust.
Has a team ever won all eight quarters? Well, this Ireland one did, showing an incredible zeal to heap as much misery on the Australians until the last hooter having led 53-16 at half-time.
This Test was also played out in front of 28,525, the second lowest Croke Park attendance for a Test contributing to the smallest aggregate crowd for a two-Test series in Ireland. Only the AFL can save the series now, but on Saturday there was sympathy aplenty for affable Australian coach Michael O’Loughlin, whose players clearly didn’t take the hint that their best seven days previous wasn’t good enough.
He said they would improve or at least thought they would. He took it all on the chin but confessed he was advised to couch his words about the effort of his charges.
Describing himself as “a bit ill, a bit sick”, he added: “I didn’t want to say anything I regretted in five years’ time, 10 years’ time. This is as flat as I have ever been I would think. You can’t believe what’s happening because you train and you talk about it and you have team meetings and you go through the whole thing but it’s disappointing.
“Guys just refuse to follow instructions. In the end we just ran out of legs. It got really difficult for some players. It got hard and some blokes threw... as I said I don’t want to go into it because I’ll say something I regret but it just got hard for some players and I’ll leave it at that.”
O’Loughlin insisted he wouldn’t have changed anything from a coaching perspective. He wasn’t making any excuses about the lack of familiarity with the round ball either.
He admitted he enjoyed watching Ireland at times.
“We made the game as simple as possible but there are guys here who are highly skilled with the oval ball who made really poor decisions and executed poorly and they don’t do that back home. For whatever reason some panicked. Some really panicked and the way Paul and the guys in the Irish team played and attacked and attacked and attacked put our guys under the pump even more.
“I actually enjoyed watching them [Ireland] there for a while. It got to a point where I admired the way they played. They’ve got some super talent. Our guys, round ball, no excuses. They’re just too good.”
Earley was just as effusive in his praise of his own men.
“They’re professionals in everything they do other than getting paid and professional teams steamroll the opposition.
“When we got 20 points ahead we wanted to make it 40 and when we got 40 points ahead we wanted to make it 80. That’s what good teams do. You don’t sit back on a lead, you never defend a lead in my opinion in a team game.
“They’re a talented bunch of players and very competitive. We had set certain targets over the last few days for each quarter so the guys exceeded those targets in every quarter, so we broke it down quarter by quarter and that kept the focus right to the end.”
That they did. Annihilations and capitulations don’t come much sharper than this.
Scorers for Ireland: C McManus (2-4-0) 24; M Murphy (0-4-0) 12; L Keegan (0-3-2), P McBrearty (1-1-2) 11 each; C Sheehan, R Munnelly (0-3-1) 10 each; C Kilkenny (1-1-0) 9; P Conroy (1-0-1) 7; J McCaffrey (1-0-0) 6; P Flynn (0-1-2) 5; S Cavanagh (0-1-1) 4; C McKaigue (0-1-0) 3; A Walsh, J Doyle, C Begley, M Shields (0-0-1) 1 each.
Scorers for Australia: E Betts (1-1-0) 9; J Meade (1-0-1) 7; L Jetta (0-2-0) 6; J Hill (0-1-1) 4; S Wellingham, Alywn Davey, L Thomas (0-1-0) 3 each; J Harbrow, M Stokes (0-0-1) 1 each.
Ireland inter-changes: 2. C Begley (Laois); 3. C Boyle (Mayo); 6. P Conroy (Galway); 7. J Doyle (Kildare); 13. C Kilkenny (Dublin); 14. P McBrearty (Donegal); 19. C McKeever (Armagh); 20. K McLoughlin (Mayo).
Australia inter-changes: 7. L Jetta (Essendon); 12. L Thomas (North Melbourne); 29 Alwyn Davey (Essendon); 33. J Hill (West Coast); 34. D Barry (Melbourne).
Referees: M Deegan (Laois), M Stevic (Australia).
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