Welcome back to the IRS - The International Rules (formerly the Compromise Rules) Series, once played annually between Australia and Ireland, was sent to the gallows in late 2006. It appears they were afforded a pardon and instead went into hibernation. The series is set to be awakened very shortly and make a dramatic return Down Under this autumn. It may have slipped in under your radar but the decision to resurrect them was taken at a recent Central Council meeting and the reaction to the rebirth is pretty mixed. The term 'Last Chance Saloon' springs to mind. And although LCS is over-used and much abused (as in the Dubs were supposed to be drinking in the LCS before every one of their major games for the past three years and yet here we have them again in 2008 as one of the favourites to land the senior All Ireland!). But be sure this is the final curtain call for the International Rules concept; the series will sink or swim this year. I have mixed feelings myself about this latest development. Played well the compromise game is a marvelous spectacle but to get both teams to commit to the ideal of a sporting contest has not proven easy and finally, not proven possible. The 2006 debacle was shocking and the 'game' played in Croke Park that Sunday was a disgrace. Nickey Brennan voiced his anger, rightly so, and the series died a death within a month. And now here we go again with Nickey leading the charge. It is a bold call and a high risk strategy but with a major overhaul of the rules and the manner in which the match officials will run the game, it has to have a chance. But it is the attitude of the players that will ultimately decide what future these games have. Part of the sales pitch for the re-launch was the idea that having the AFL in the tent with the GAA would put a stop to their poaching of our best young players. But nobody, as far as I recall, has fleshed out the detail implied in that association. And so we do not know what that selling point really gives the GAA at home. How will it put a stop to the right of a young lad to try his hand at the professional game? And how many are we losing anyhow? Over the last ten years has the dozen mark been surpassed? How many have we lost to soccer and rugby in that same period? A bit of logic and reality is called for. And if so many are going to Australia, we will surely be extremely competitive when it comes to selection this time around. All those 'stolen' players can tog for Ireland and return our competitiveness. And as we won the first match in 2006 when Galway hosted the visitors, the gap is not that wide to begin with. The second game was the disaster and the reason a major gap appeared was obvious: the pre-match undercurrent of violence made for an extremely edgy build-up and the actual thuggery on display during the early stages of the test match prevented any resistance from the home side. I like the idea of a two year cycle with a break for the third year and the hope now must be we will get to host the 2009 series in Ireland. That can only happen if all sides, and most importantly the players, embrace this idea of a sporting contest in the real sense of sport. Alas, just now, hope is the best we can do-we simply cannot second guess the attitudes. Another angle to the reintroduction of the IR is their place in the fixtures calendar. A few months ago you will recall much ado in the GAA world about the topics of player burnout and a congested fixtures calendar. Some fine men and true applied themselves to resolving a situation that has been allowed to evolve unchecked, and is now threatening to bring part of the house down. Many fine suggestions made it to a Special Congress but in an overall sense these reports were filed away, perhaps to be given some air at another time. Or not. Much ado about nothing then. A Rumpolean golden thread linked much of the hot air debate. The role of the club was trotted out by speaker after speaker, how dear it is to all our hearts, it being the very basic building block of the association. How precious indeed this unit is. Despite the fixtures calendar being at bursting point, it was decided to park the idea of amalgamating the under 18 and under 21 championships into one single under 19 category. We heard a fair bit of waffle on this one and that noise was allowed drown out the expert medical advice. Now the International Rules are back. What place in the schedule will the extra fixtures occupy? Most likely October I guess, that time of the year when club activity is at its peak. So, get ready for postponements, deferrals, deep winter football and plenty more hot air. Down Mayo way our delegates rowed in with the idea of the series being revived. As did the majority of counties nationally. The anger and disappointment within the Mayo GAA family last September when possibly our brightest star, Pierse Hanley, departed these shores, filled a fair few paragraphs at the time. How quickly we forget. Similar to the disciplinary side of IR the only way to put manners on sharp practices is to have some form of regulation. This is the only way to prevent the poaching of good young footballers by professional club sides. But the right to travel and the right to earn a living will form part of any discussions in this area so it looks a hard road. You probably will never stop the flow and really, with the numbers that are presently on the table, is there any need to prevent it anyway? An amateur organisation can hardly make a strong case to hard nosed professionals and prevent young players from 'working' in a foreign land. Tweet

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