A chara, - After the debacles of Perth and Melbourne surely it is time the GAA pulled the plug on the International/ Comprom-ise/Thuggery Rules series for good?
Gaelic football is one of the most skilful and hard-hitting sports in the world. People go to matches to see robust challenges, blocks, shoulder charges and high fielding under pressure. But after witnessing what was basically aggravated assault and GBH in Melbourne I'm sure people wouldn't even let their kids watch this on TV, never mind play it as a "sport".
To pit 15 amateur (only in the sense they don't get paid), day-job sportsmen against 15 well-paid professionals, who know they can basically do what they like and suffer no punishment in their own game and who have the comfort of earning $200-300,000 Australian a year, is nothing short of criminal.
If Philip Jordan had suffered a broken neck after Chris Johnston's tackle in Melbourne - a more than likely probability given the viciousness of the tackle - his livelihood and life would have been destroyed.
If the GAA want an international dimension then internationalise our own game. We have the "diaspora" in North America, Britain, Australia, Europe and even Asia.
Yes, it would take time and energy and money to bring these other countries up to the standard of Ireland but it would be a much more worthwhile project than the present farce.
I can only wonder what emigrants in Australia must think, people who may have devoted their lives to Gaelic Games in their adopted country, when they see the cream of Ireland's Gaelic footballers bypass them and play this bastardised, mongrel sport.
GAA president Seán Kelly's comments that Australia won the game "fair and square" were as bewildering as they were untrue. According to an tuachtarán there was a couple of "schemozzles", that much-loved Kerry word of dubious meaning.
This series is like trying to mate a gazelle with a giraffe, or perhaps more appropriately a red setter with a dingo. Come on, Croke Park. Knock this thing on the head. - Is mise,
CIARÁN Mac MURCHAIDH, Droim an Tí, Co Ard Mhacha.