November 8, 2006 at 2:05PM Kevin Myers and the Case of the Missing Research
Kevin Myers is, as we all know, not one to let such trivial things as research and historical fact get in the way of one of his columns, and he proved that yet again in his Indo column today calling for an end to the annual International Rules Series between Ireland and Australia. I’ll try and keep this one short as there’s only a few things that warrant comment.
Frankly, I’ve no axe to grind with the continuing existence of the series. My only wish is that the Australians would start playing a cleaner game. I don’t really mind if Ireland get beaten into oblivion just as long as the game itself was fair and clean. Australia has not played a particularly fair and clean game over the last two years. However, I can understand why many feel that the series ought to be ended: it seems to be turning into a way for the AFL to poach teams from the Irish game and the Australians’ recent brutality casts doubt on whether the series can properly be described as sport.
But I digress. My reason for writing this is that Myers is taking a reasonable viewpoint--that the series should end--and twisting it to do some GAA-bashing. Let’s trim his usual hyperbole and list the Colonel’s points:
Why [does the] International Rules competition [exist] at all?
It exists because the AFL approached the GAA about organising such a code and later the series.
Was it because the two codes [...] are so similar that an intermediary sport is not merely possible but desirable?
I don’t know about “desirable”, but possible, yes. The two codes do, after all, share more commonalities than any other codes, bar the similarities between American and Canadian football and Rugby Union and Rugby League. Also, both codes influenced the development of the other, with, amongst other things, Aussie Rules believed to be descended from the forms of football--known as Caid--brought to Australia by Irish immigrants, later codified to provide an off-season game for cricket players, and Gaelic Football being influenced through Bishop Croke’s experiences of the Australian game.
Caid and a number of aborigine football-like games forms the basis of the Australian game, and a combination of Caid and Hurling the basis of the Irish game.
Or was it simply because they are the only footballing codes in the world which did not have an English ancestor, and so the two had something in common?
Ah, and the baiting begins.
Now, the GAA might have something of a reputation for puritanism in sport, but in this case, they are very much innocent of the charge. Or maybe the Colonel is charging the Australians with being anti-English? Highly doubtful, as I expect the Colonel’s audience Down Under isn’t all that great.
As to demonstrate his lack of knowledge on the history of both games, he writes:
Not having a common ancestor means that the differences are probably greater then the similarities. [...] Having shared great great grandmothers is the first requirement for any successful union.
Sigh.
How many top players of either rugby union or rugby league could switch sports successfully?
Tell that to the Gaelic Football players who have went and had successful careers in Australia. My thinking on the topic is that the problem isn’t so much the differences between the codes’ rules, but that Gaelic Football is amateur and Aussie Rules is professional: amateur players can’t hope to compete at the same level of fitness and dedication as players who spend their whole time doing it.
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