Spluttering outrage here has been met with incredulity there. Paul Daffey in Melbourne gives an Aussie perspective on recent events . . .
While the Irish shake their fists at the apparent thuggery of the Australian players in last weekend's International Rules match at Croke Park, Australian Football League fans can only shake their heads.
"To think that Danyle Pearce has caused all this fuss," they're saying. "Danyle Pearce!"
Built like a reed but not quite as scary, Pearce is renowned in Australia for his pace and skill, as well as his fortitude in overcoming perceptions that he was too fragile to play against the big boys.
His club, Port Adelaide, took what was considered a risk in elevating the stripling forward on to the senior list last year. Since then, he has won the 2006 award for the best young player in the AFL competition, the Rising Star Award.
Pearce earned the honour for his ability to kick scintillating goals and his awareness in traffic, a quality that is prevalent among Aboriginal players. He certainly didn't win his award for robust tackling, although he has made efforts to improve the physical parts of his game.
When news was broadcast last week that Pearce was the perpetrator of the carnage on Graham Geraghty, which included the appearance of foam from the Irish player's mouth, the reaction was a mixture of disbelief and relief - disbelief because no one in Australia thought Pearce capable of anything more than a malicious frown; and relief because, if Pearce really did floor Geraghty, there was no other conclusion than it was an accident.
Jim Stynes, the Dubliner who made an enormous impression through his courage when playing with the Melbourne AFL club, said Geraghty's horrific injuries were entirely the result of an accident, a tackle gone wrong. And that was enough for us.
Nobody in Australia could dream of Pearce setting out to damage Geraghty. Few would have thought it possible.
It was more believable, however, that the Australia team had turned up the heat in the second game of the series. It's part of the culture of Australian football for the coach to seek atonement by demanding that his players apply more "physical pressure" on opponents.
The Australians felt they needed to atone after a poor showing in the first match against Ireland in Galway. There was nothing more certain than the euphemistic "physical pressure" would be applied early in the match at Croke Park.
Contrary to the bleating of Irish officials, no Australians set out to knock an Irish player's head off. They were simply applying an extra dollop of physical pressure, in the manner of a team that seeks atonement, and the Irish took it badly.
Claims that the Australian official had failed to hand out red cards were also misplaced; the official was simply interpreting the tackling rules as he's always known them.
These claims made about the Australian official struck fans in Australia as curious at best. Mostly, they thought it was shameless sooking by those who refuse to learn the tackling rules as they've been set down since the International Rules game was revived in 1998.
The only questionable behaviour by an official that I can recall in an International Rules game was carried out by an Irish official, again in 1999.
Clearly upset at what he regarded was too much physical pressure from the Australians, he made it his duty to punish them. Perhaps he wasn't so much wrong as acting in defiance of the rules.
The Australians, flummoxed at being penalised for what they believed were regulation tackles, became confused. The Australian official was put in an invidious position.
He knew his Irish counterpart was making decisions based on what he believed was in the spirit of the game, but, essentially, he was acting against the rules for the benefit of his country's team.
The Australian players might have become angry at the official's incompetence, but they kept their emotions in check.
A big part of the misunderstanding between the two countries is the result of Australians' directness (gaucheness might be another term). Any obstacle is to be met head-on, usually with aggression. The Irish, in my experience, are more cunning. The word the Irish themselves use is "cute".
When the Australians acted in a tactless and blustering manner, as they did in the opening of the second International Rules match, the Irish despised not only their physical tactics, but their lack of cuteness.
In Ireland, conversations veer through several curves before straightening up. In Australia, it's straight ahead all the way. In deciding whether the International Rules series is to continue, it might be worth talking topography as well as direction.
Paul Daffey is a freelance journalist living in Melbourne. In 1998, he worked for spells at the The Examiner and The Irish Times.