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22 October 1998 Edition

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Sportsview: Ireland Rules the Compromise Series

BY MARTIN SPAIN

For reasons entirely connected to earning a living, this Dub has been a stranger to Hill 16 for the last couple of years, but the return to Mecca for the Compromise Rules series with the Australians was almost as good as those distant dreamy days when the Dubs were winning championship games.

Croker, which had attracted 23,000 for the first match and was a third as full again on the second Sunday, was alive and kicking on a post-season October day in a manner reminiscent of a certain garrison game, as ``Come on you Boys in Green'' and Mexican waves swept the stadium.

The two matches, which were lightning fast and featured a tremendous degree of skill and commitment from both sides, will hopefully have ensured that the series will become a permanent annual fixture.

Undoubtedly, Irish unfamiliarity with the legal two-handed tackle, combined with a degree of panic and exhaustion in the final quarter, cost them victory in the first match, but these difficulties were ironed out last Sunday. The Irish seemed more at home with the notion that possession is danger and passed with amazing speed and fluidity at times. The rain that greeted the start of the game did not help the Australians, the greasy ball making their trademark spectacular high catches more difficult propositions. The Irish scrapped well to win loose ball and knockdowns and ran out good winners on the evidence of the two games. But the real winner was the compromise concept.

The famous John 3:7 man, standing beside my flag-wielding crew for the duration, was particularly looking forward to this Sunday's women's final replay, but he appeared just as enthused as everybody else around the ground by the vitality and sheer excitement of the drama unfolding on the pitch. The lack of a decent all-in scrap in the second game, while probably in the best interests of the series' survival, was not so popular on the Hill, where us less callow fans, familiar with the robust confrontations between representative sides in the past, harboured primitive urges to see violence done and be done, preferably without injury, strictly for the spectacle, you understand. We also wanted to see if the new shirts would fall apart as easily in battle as the horrific excuses for strips of the previous Sunday, which bore all the hallmarks of a Guiney's bargain bin.

The clock counting down the passage of each 20-minute segment of the game was a further source of great entertainment, particularly in the final quarter, as victory beckoned, and there was a very gloating quality to the final roar of ``5-4-3-2-1'' before the hooter signalled that the spoils had gone to the men in the still intact green shirts.

Everybody I talked to had enjoyed the game and was looking forward to next year's series down under. As for me, I think I'll embrace religion for once and return to the Hill this Sunday.

An Phoblacht
44 Parnell Sq.
Dublin 1
Ireland