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If the Irish team management had the good grace to publicly acknowledge in an issued statement that what went on at the Gaelic Grounds, Limerick, last Saturday evening was unacceptable, it would offer some hope for the future of this International series, not to mention my sanity. I travelled to Limerick, bringing along four very enthusiastic children who were relishing the fact that they were going to see the cream of our GAA stars from all around the country playing for Ireland. What I and they witnessed was a damp squib of an effort, particularly from our own GAA ‘stars’. I am not exaggerating when I suggest that I genuinely yawned my way through this match. I accept that we have witnessed elements of thuggery in the past that even led to calls for the series to be scrapped. This game on Saturday was so poor the devil in me was half hoping there would be a skirmish or two for no other reason than to liven things up a little. The modern version of the game has become completely sanitised, with practically no physicality whatsoever. It would seem from afar that both teams have been well warned not to engage in any tussles that might bring the continuance of the series into question. I can accept that no Irish player wants to get hurt playing this hybrid game, but I certainly would not want to waste my time travelling any distance to see another game like the lacklustre effort on display last weekend. In fact there were times in this match when I began to wonder if both teams were on some sort of a financial incentive if they managed to come through 75 minutes of action without encountering a meaningful tough challenge. I believe now that if there is not a change in attitude from both sides ahead of tomorrow’s encounter in Croke Park, then Mickey Harte will have been proven correct when he suggested a number of years ago that we should never have gone down this road in the first place. In fact if the GAA’s top brass want to showcase the version of the compromise rules we witnessed last Saturday evening as a spectacle, then they should start stockpiling all the footage of this game into a great big bonfire and quickly burn the lot. At the very least they should insist that no ‘highlights’ of this game are shown, because with the exception of Bernard Brogan’s goal near the end, there was none. Handled properly, the GAA can comfortably cope with outside challenges ie, soccer and rugby but most certainly does not need to self – destruct over a compromise rules series that has many problems. Now having said all of that I am travelling up to Croke Park tomorrow with a bus load of first year students from St Gerald’s college, Castlebar, in the knowledge that hopefully both teams will have realised that they did not provide value for money last weekend and will want to do something to make amends.