Nickey Brennan has denied that the changes in the rules of the International Rules series have been made to benefit Ireland. Ireland have lost the last two series heavily and many believe the game's lack of competitiveness posed as big a threat to its future as the indiscipline of the Australians. A raft of new rules have been drawn up for the revived series and they all appear to favour Ireland, who will tour Australia next month. Brennan said: "If people want to draw that conclusion, fair enough. "We just wanted to vary the skill set in the game and I don't know if in doing that you can say that we are favouring the Irish guys." One of the major rule changes concerns the handpass which the Australians have used to great effect in the past. The new rule means that only four consecutive handpasses can be permitted before the ball must be kicked. "It was also a case where we wanted a bit more kicking of the ball in it. It means that after four passes of the ball by hand, you have to use your foot," the GAA president explained. "It is called International Rules football and we would like to think that they will use the foot a little bit more and that is what we are trying to do. There is no question of trying to have an advantage one way or the other." Tweet

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