2015 International Rules test review: Ireland v. Australia at Dublin

It was with some excitement that I looked forward to this year’s International Rules test between the AFL’s finest and the Emerald Isle’s top Gaelic footballers, held at the iconic Croke Park. With 2015 being an annus horribilis for the indigenous code, both on the field (73 stoppages per match) and off it (Goodesgate, Essendongate, Phil Walsh’s murder), perhaps the hybrid game could light the way to a better brand of football.

International Rules is much maligned by AFL fans: the Irish are seen as lacking in physicality and athleticism compared to our players, and the contest is viewed as a junket. But the hybrid code actually retains many features of pre-Demetriou Australian rules. There are few ball-ups, no rolling mauls, limited interchange, and teams are forced to kick to contests due to the ban on chains of six or more handballs. While it is admittedly a less physical game, it is more physical than Gaelic football and it favours the small forward over the clearance specialist midfielder.

The result is a code which moves at the steady, constant tempo of a soccer match and which features the round-ball skills of the world game, in addition to the physicality and aeriality of Australian rules. In other words, it combines some of the best features of this blog’s two favourite sports! No wonder I’m so excited about it.

Although Australia were the first to score, courtesy of a Robbie Gray over within the first minute, the match was less than four minutes old when a goal-mouth scramble caused by the first of many goalkeeping errors from Dustin Fletcher led to Aidan O’Shea goaling. The sides traded overs in a solid display of accurate kicking until the score reached 21-12 in Ireland’s favour; the only behind of the first quarter came in the final minute of the term, when Irish goalkeeper Niall Morgan deflected Jarryd Roughead’s shot through for a behind.

At the start of the second quarter, an over and a behind for the visitors, clad in navy blue shirts with yellow trims and a yellow Southern Cross, brought the score to 21-17. But it wasn’t long before O’Shea bagged his second goal of the match, Ireland getting a second bite of the cherry after Fletcher saved Bernard Brogan’s initial shot.

More skilful ball movement by the Irish, sporting lightly hooped shirts in two shades of green and embellished with white and yellow trims, took the score to 34-22 by the twelfth minute of the quarter thanks to two Brogan overs. It was then that Australian captain Luke Hodge brought back memories of his Round 21 bump which put Chad Wingard’s head between himself and a behind post, when he bundled Donegal man Patrick McBrearty into the goalpost after yet another Fletcher mistake. Conor McManus made no mistake from the spot, and the men in green led by eighteen points having scored three goals.

Ireland led 43-23 at the main break: Australia’s shining lights were Sam Mitchell in the midfield and their fleet of small forwards led by Eddie Betts, who menaced the Irish defence with their ground-ball skills. Statistically, however, the two teams were evenly matched, with similar numbers of marks and tackles and roughly even time in possession, though the tactical contrast between them could be seen in the handballs: just before half-time, Australia hit the century mark while Ireland, where purists have complained of late of the increasing handball-to-kick ratio in Gaelic football, had executed only thirty-eight.

Australia began the third quarter well with Leigh Montagna and David Mundy kicking overs early on. The match never lost its free-flowing tempo, and when Nick Riewoldt was tackled inside the penalty area in the fourth minute of the second half, we had played forty minutes of football (!) and had just witnessed the first stoppage.

Two further Irish overs blew the score out to 50-29, but one over from Luke Breust, two from Riewoldt, and Fletcher’s decision to come out of his box and act as a ‘sweeper-keeper’ got los australianos back into the contest. The hosts led 50-39 at the final change, but the ascendancy was with the Aussies, whose superior fitness often proves the difference late in these matches.

A fierce opening to the fourth quarter saw neither side score for nearly six minutes as both relentlessly attacked and counter-attacked. An Irish behind relieved the tension, while their solid defending denied Riewoldt at the other end. Betts added one point and Gray three, but Ireland came close to sealing the match when what would have been McManus’ second goal bounced off the top side of the crossbar.

Australia needed something special, and it came one minute later. West Coast’s Andrew Gaff crossed and Betts flew over a bi-national group of players to punch the ball in for a goal. A score review was needed to check whether the Crows’ goalsneak had fallen foul of the ‘square ball’ rule (Gaelic football’s equivalent of an offside law, which bars attackers from entering the six-yard box before the ball has done so), but the ‘all clear’ was given, and Australia were within six points. Another cross from Gaff resulted in an over to Gray, and the margin was down to three (55-52) with as many minutes remaining.

Having already scored four overs, Brogan looked to have the match won for Ireland when he went one-on-one with Fletcher in the dying minutes. But the retiring Essendon veteran effected a superb tackle, forcing play back to the twenty-metre line for what was only the second ball-up of the match. Australia looked to take the ball out from the back, but Ireland regained possession and strung together a chain of marks – not a feature of their code – to run down the clock. It was Brogan who put the result beyond doubt when the Dublin forward scored a behind with thirty-two seconds remaining.

It was a splendid encounter on a chilly Dublin night, and the Irish were deserved winners of the Cormac McAnallen Cup. Geelong defender Harry Taylor was awarded the Jim Stynes Medal as Australia’s best on ground, though the other Cat in the side, stoppage king Paddy Dangerfield was ineffective in the largely stoppage-free hybrid code.

Last year, when Australia handily defeated Ireland in Perth, I was unimpressed by the match. Specifically, I felt that the near-amateur Irish exerted a lack of defensive pressure on their better-conditioned opponents. This time around, however, the match was a much better spectacle. The hosts, playing in a more accommodating climate than Perth in November, and having selected players suited to the hybrid code rather than following the Australian policy of handing out lifetime achievement guernseys to past all-Australians, were able to swarm the Australian ball-carrier and punish the antipodeans’ lack of polish with the round ball.

I also cannot stress enough the most important statistic of the night: two stoppages. That’s not a misprint: AFL matches this year averaged 73, and that number is on an upward trend due to the speeding-up of the game and the interchange cap. With the round ball and the prohibitions against taking possession while being on one’s knees and diving on the ball, International Rules is a breath of fresh air when set against the stoppage-infested ‘third rugby code’ that footy has turned into in the Demetriou-McLachlan Era.

And it wasn’t just the lack of stoppages that impressed me in this match: with their natural feel for the round ball, the Irish were able to keep the ball in perpetual motion, tapping it backwards over their heads to teammates and diving to knock it to advantage.

For the AFL and the Gaelic Athletic Association, International Rules is just a hybrid sport which facilitates international competition between the two organisations. But this is a fantastic sport in its own right, and one which deserves to be played at the highest level more than once per year.

For years, there have been calls for the inclusion of the New York and London Gaelic football teams, both of whom participate in the all-Ireland championship, to turn the International Rules Series into a triangular or quadrangular tournament. A more radical idea would be to incorporate elements of soccer, one example being place-kicked free kicks, which were historically a feature of Gaelic football. If players from the lower reaches of professional soccer could be encouraged to take up the hybrid code, we could have an International Rules World Cup.

A more realistic goal would be to incorporate some aspects of International Rules into Australian football: specifically the prohibition of taking possession while on one’s knees and the rule against stringing together more than six handpasses. The first should reduce this blog’s bête noire, congestion, by stopping players from diving on loose balls that they have no hope of handballing to advantage. The second would be aimed at bringing back the long kick to a contest, historically one of football’s key aesthetic features, and this should help with congestion by drawing players back into their forward and back lines and away from the 36-man midfield scrimmage.

Ireland 3.11.5.56 – Australia 1.13.7.52

Goals: O’Shea 4’ (Q1), 3’ (Q2); McManus 12’ (Q2, pen.) (Ire.); Betts 13’ (Q4) (Aust.)

Overs: Brogan 4, McManus 3, Connolly, Hughes, Keegan, O’Shea (Ire.); Gray 3, Betts 2, Riewoldt 2, Ballantyne, Breust, Heppell, Montagna, Mundy, Roughead (Aust.)

Best: O’Shea, Brogan, McManus, Keegan (Ire.); Taylor, Mitchell, Breust, Heppell, Betts, Riewoldt (Aust.)

2018 World Cup qualifying match review: Bangladesh v. Australia at Dhaka

After beating Bangladesh 5-0 at the Perth Oval earlier in the campaign, the Socceroos could have been excused for taking their collective foot off the pedal in the return fixture at the Bangabandhu National Stadium in Dhaka. Under a security cloud caused by the appearance of ISIS in the once terror-free Subcontinental republic, the visitors notched up another goal difference-boosting win, knocking four goals past their opponents.

Australia, in their now-quotidian gold-trimmed navy blue away kit, attacked from the kick-off, forcing the Bengal Tigers to boot the ball out of their penalty area multiple times in the first three minutes before Tim Cahill headed an Aaron Mooy free kick into goal. The Melbourne City midfielder has had a blinder of an international break, involving himself in all four goals here in addition to his excellent playmaking against Kyrgyzstan.

It was a humid night in Dhaka, and the hosts’ shirts (red with green trim) were visibly moist and clung to their bodies as tightly as the players did to their more illustrious opponents. Bangladesh took nineteen minutes to bother Adam Federici, though they made their presence felt at the other end: they committed four fouls in the first half-hour and goalkeeper Shahidul Alam clashed heads with Mile Jedinak.

Shahidul did well on the twenty-eight minute mark to hold the ball in the field of play after being barged into by Cahill, but within four minutes his side were 2-0 down, the aforementioned Cahill fighting off Shahidul and three rossoverdi defenders in a goal-mouth scramble.

With the ‘Roos having seventy-nine percent of possession in the opening half, more chances would eventually come their way. Massimo Luongo tried a header in the thirty-sixth minute, before Mooy and Cahill combined for the third gialloverdi goal a minute later. The former broke through the Bengali defensive line and put himself one-on-one with the keeper, before laying the ball up to the latter, who made no mistake despite being double-teamed by two defenders.

From the second of two successive free kicks conceded by the ill-disciplined youngster Hemanta Biswas, Jedinak was able to put a name other than ‘Cahill’ on the scoresheet, finishing off Bailey Wright’s headed volley of Mooy’s kick.

Mooy and Luongo were rested at half-time, replaced by Tommy Oar and James Troisi. Not content with their limited opportunities thus far, Bangladesh tried to catch Federici napping by pumping a free kick at him from the half-way line, and frustration got the better of their captain in the eighty-seventh minute when he saw yellow for remonstrating with the referee.

The Socceroos, who had seventeen shots on goal to the Bengal Tigers’ two, played it safe in the second half. The closest they came to scoring was in the seventy-first minute, when Nathan Burns was fouled on the edge of the area but sprayed the resulting shot well over the bar, and nine minutes later, when Jedinak tried a speculative bicycle kick.

Another three points on the board for t’lads and, thanks to our good mates Kyrgyzstan beating Jordan at home for us, we now top the group.

Bangladesh 0 – Australia 4 (Tim Cahill 6’, 32’, 37’; Mile Jedinak 43’)

Cautions: Hemanta Biswas (Bang.) 40’; Monaem Khan Raju (Bang.) 47’; Mamunul Islam (Bang.) 87’

International friendly match review: Spain v. England at Alicante

It’s a pity that soccer internationals of this nature are known as ‘friendlies’ instead of ‘tests’, because this was a supreme test for both sides. For Spain, hosting this match in Alicante instead of Madrid because of concerns that unreconstructed franquistas might boo the Catalan patriot Gerard Piqué, this was their chance to show the world that their failure at the 2014 World Cup was an aberration and that tiki-taka, unlike the Generalissimo, was not dead.

For England, whose ten wins gave them the best record in qualifying for Euro ’16, this was an opportunity to show that they could match it with another superpower in their first real test since their group stage exit in Brazil. They lined up in a 4-4-1-1, with Everton’s Ross Barkley nesting behind lone striker Harry Kane, while their hosts went with a 4-1-3-2, featuring Sergio Busquets as the sole holding midfielder.

The story of the night, however, was England’s inability to control possession: a familiar refrain in the sport’s homeland. Most of the decent chances fell to Spain, who ended the first half with sixty-three percent of the ball and who often looked like they were playing futsal with themselves on the tablecloth-patterned turf.

England’s first penetration of the Spanish defence came in the seventh minute, and Raheem Sterling fired the resulting shot well over the bar. La furia roja came close in the twenty-third minute, when Busquets got on the end of a corner kick, and in the twenty-ninth, when Valencia’s Paco Alcácer was the recipient of a high through-ball.

In between all of this, Thiago Alcântara was taken off with an injury, replaced by Santi Cazorla, who proved an effective addition to the Spanish midfield. Sterling put his body on the line in the wall to stop a Cesc Fàbregas free kick in its tracks, but the Three Lions’ defence was almost exposed in injury time, when they were forced to clear the ball from their own penalty area three times in quick succession.

With six shots apiece in the first half, victory looked likely to fall to whichever side could make its chances count. Both coaches tinkered with their bench (six substitutions being allowed in international friendlies by order of Blatter), but it was the entry of Manchester United’s Raumdeuter Juan Mata, on for the so-so Diego Costa just after the hour mark, which altered the game’s complexion.

Suddenly, the Spanish lifted the tempo of their attacking moves, playing through balls and one-twos while pressuring Kane into a series of misses at the other end. In the seventy-second minute, Alcácer, Fàbregas, and Mario Gaspar combined for the opening goal, the last-mentioned executing a superb volley which bounced awkwardly past Joe Hart.

Within a minute, Roy Hodgson dragged the unimpressive Barkley to allow the White Pelé himself, (He Goes By The Name Of) Wayne Rooney, to join Kane in a classically English two-man strike partnership. Vicente del Bosque also rang the changes, swapping Alcácer for Chelsea’s Pedro and Busquets for Atlético Madrid’s Koke. But it was Cazorla who would shatter England’s hopes, firing a loose ball through a confused defence from just outside the box.

There were no further goals, but plenty of further worries for the visitors. Michael Carrick, without doubt the most Spanish Englishman in football, had to be stretchered off in the ninetieth minute with damage to his ankle ligament. In the second minute of second-half stoppage time, Rooney hit the cross-bar with a shot which summed up England’s night.

Overall, this was a match which promised a clash of stereotypes – Spanish tiki-taka against English speed and power – and which largely delivered, but also demonstrated that possession in and of itself is useless without penetration. Spain worked the ball, wore England down, and made them pay in the final twenty minutes. The Poms will need to lift their game if they are to break their half-century major tournament drought in France.

Spain 2 (Mario Gaspar 72’; Santi Cazorla 84’) – England 0

2018 World Cup qualifying match review: Australia v. Kyrgyzstan at Canberra

In June, Kyrgyzstan thrilled this blog with a display of scintillating end-to-end soccer, a sort of Central Asian totaalvoetbal, if you will. They were unlucky to lose only 2-1 to the Socceroos, and it would be interesting to see what the men from the steppes could serve up at Bruce Stadium.

It had been cold and wet in the national capital, and the Canberrans had their umbrellas out prior to kick-off, while many of the couple-of-dozen-strong away support sported traditional Kyrgyz hats. The ‘Roos, playing in the familiar combo of yellow shirts, green shorts, and white socks, had chances early. They entered the Kyrgyz penalty area thrice in the first ninety seconds, Tim Cahill plowing the best chance into goalkeeper Pavel Matiash, whose lime green kit surely reminded the locals of sporting triumphs of days gone by…

At the quarter-hour mark, Melbourne City midfielder Aaron Mooy had a decent chance and Cahill followed up with the rebound, his shot grazing the corner of the goal frame. Two minutes later, the Snow Leopards, resplendent in white shirts with single navy blue and royal blue hoops at the top, white shorts, and red socks, thought they had a case for a penalty when replays showed debutante Australian defender James Meredith pulling the shirt of Akram Umarov.

There was more physicality to come: striker Ildar Amirov contested a loose ball with right-back Ryan McGowan; Amirov’s elbow and McGowan’s nose both came off second best. Cahill’s strike partner Tommy Jurić was substituted early for Nathan Burns. Various gialloverdi attackers peppered the visitors’ goal, typically assisted by through balls from Mooy, playing the role of über-cool shiny-headed regista with aplomb; the most promising was the thirty-seventh minute Burns shot, which would have been turned in had Mark Milligan got onto the rebound.

The thirty-ninth-minute penalty was more clear-cut than Kyrgyzstan’s earlier shout; Islam Shamshiev giving Burns a trip and then a hip-and-shoulder for good measure. Captain Mile Jedinak, a trusted figure at the penalty spot, hit the top right-hand corner of the net; Matiash guessed the correct side but dived too low. Los australianos led 1-0 at the break, Massimo Luongo having an injury-time tap-in disallowed for offside; the hosts had also cornered the possession market with seventy-four percent of the ball.

Mooy was in the thick of things early in the second half, getting on the end of a Jedinak pass and finding Cahill loose in the box for the Socceroos’ second goal. Four minutes later, Mooy sent a fast ball across the face of goal which a fuera de juego Cahill couldn’t get past the keeper.

Things wouldn’t get much better for ак барстар. In the fifty-sixth minute, Kairat Zhyrgalbek Uulu was cautioned for a foul on Meredith. Midfielder Shamshiev was subbed off for Vitalij Lux, a forward who plies his trade with 1. FC Nürnberg’s reserve team, and captain Azamat Baymatov, the inside of his arm sporting the tattooed words (in English) I am the master of my fate, ironically found his fate in the hands of the trainers when he was stretchered off fifteen minutes from time.

The third Australian goal came in the sixty-ninth minute, when Mooy bombed a corner kick into the six-yard box and forced an own goal from the head of Amirov. With the three points in the bag, the home side were able to rest Jedinak and Burns, off for Tom Rogić and James Troisi respectively; the entry into the fray of the Canberran Rogić met with a passionate from the knowledgeable locals.

In the seventy-ninth minute, the Central Asians had their best chance of the night when goalkeeper Adam Federici slipped over and would have been powerless to stop Lux’s shot had it been executed better. Troisi and Cahill one-twoed a minute later but the former skewed the resulting shot, before the Shanghai Shenhua striker had a blinder in the final few minutes: he appeared to have been brought down in the box, then was ruled offside (and shown a yellow card, seemingly for tapping the ball into the back of the net after the linesman’s flag was raised), then had two shots saved in stoppage time, the second from point-blank range.

It was a commendable performance by both sides: the Socceroos never surrendered the free-flowing verticalité which has served them so well in the Postecoglou Era, while the Snow Leopards were solid at the back, and all Australia will be cheering them on when they take on Jordan at home next week.

Australia 3 (Mile Jedinak 40’ pen.; Tim Cahill 50’; Ildar Amirov 69’ o.g.) – Kyrgyzstan 0

Cautions: Kairat Zhyrgalbek Uulu (Kyr.) 56’; Tim Cahill (Aust.) 90’