Perhaps the best way forward for the GAA is to have a supervisory role in monitoring the flow of players Down Under, writes Seán Moran

LOGICALLY, TADHG Kennelly was correct in pointing out that one way for the GAA to counter the imminent recruiting offensive from Australia would be simply to pay elite players here at home. However, that's obviously not a short-term solution, as there isn't an advocate of amateur status who doesn't believe the association is better off losing a few players to the AFL than starting on the slippery slope to professionalism or semi-professionalism.

It is, of course, the GAA's amateurism that makes it powerless to prevent the trafficking in players, but no one in Croke Park is arguing that point. Instead, the authorities are weighing up the best way of dealing with the situation. Already this week there has been movement in relation to the GAA-AFL relationship. Australia have announced that Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse will be in charge for the resumed international rules series at the end of the year.

Malthouse has an interest in the interface between the games, believing that the AFL game has become more like Gaelic football in recent years and signing a couple of Irish players - Down's Martin Clarke, who had an extraordinary rookie season last year and highly-rated Armagh youngster Kevin Dyas.

Less encouragingly for the international project, Malthouse doesn't enjoy the best of relations with media, which can be important given the at times pressurised diplomacy required of international team managers.

As a matter of historical interest, back in 1990, Malthouse succeeded John Todd as coach of the West Coast Eagles and again follows in the footsteps of the man, who was the most abrasive Australian coach in the history of the internationals.

This may be significant in the overall scheme of things because the GAA could really do with a gently upbeat international series to regularise relations with the AFL and establish the sort of stability that optimises the prospects of securing Australian co-operation in managing the flow of players.

In itself, this is a diplomatic challenge. Viewed dispassionately, the decision by the GAA's top brass, president Nickey Brennan and director general Páraic Duffy, to meet Australian players' agent Ricky Nixon in advance of his recruitment camps setting up in Ireland makes sense.

They can't do anything about his plans to recruit - all GAA players being free agents - but they're better off keeping channels of communication open in order to monitor the situation. In fact, a letter to Croke Park from AFL Operations Manager Adrian Anderson suggested that the GAA meet Nixon and ascertain for themselves his intentions.

Yet, there will be sufficient ill will towards the targeting of promising young players to create a sense of resentment that high ranking officials are even meeting someone like Nixon, whose declared intention is to take players from Gaelic games and bring them to Australia.

But that's the reality of the situation and one that is being contrived with the full co-operation of GAA members, who are acting as scouts and talent spotters for Nixon. Officials mightn't like it, but they can't stop it.

It's nearly 20 years since a wave of young footballers headed to Australia, but, because of cutbacks in the rules game, most were let go and returned to Ireland in the early 1990s, nearly all of them to make an impact on football with their own counties.

Anthony Tohill went on to win an All-Ireland medal with Derry, whereas Kildare's Niall Buckley, Mayo's Colm McMenamon and Colin Corkery from Cork all played in All-Ireland finals. Most have said that their careers benefited from the exposure as youngsters to professional training.

In the intervening years recruitment has resumed. It is frequently asserted that the International Rules series has been the driver of this interest, but what Malthouse - prior to his appointment - has termed as "the increasing Gaelicisation of the Australian game" has been far more influential.

This is reflected in the recruitment of elite players at far more advanced stages of their career than has previously been the case. Laois' Colm Begley had actually played senior inter-county championship before heading to Brisbane and both he and Martin Clarke made AFL debuts within months of joining rather than the years it had taken younger players in the past to acclimatise.

This rapid progression has acted as an advertisement for Irish players and alerted AFL clubs - particularly now that two more are about to be added to the premiership - to the availability of a sizeable talent pool here.

As with any trading situation, the rules of the market will apply. Failure to make the grade - which will become more common an occurrence the greater the numbers that are recruited - will regulate numbers more effectively than any amount of cold shouldering from Croke Park.

A full report of Monday's meeting - which is being spun improbably in the Australian media as a green light for the recruitment camps from the GAA - will be discussed by the Management Committee in order to formulate a response, but there won't be any hard and fast procedures agreed until the autumn when the series will bring officials from both organisations to Melbourne.

Hard and all as it might be for clubs and counties who have lost elite players to digest, the best way forward for the GAA might well be to have a supervisory role in monitoring the conditions for players making the switch and organising a structured return to Gaelic games for those who don't make a professional career Down Under and who want to come home.

Should the international series recover its competitive bearings and continue in the medium term - something that looks less likely with the emergence of suggestions for a biennial series - there will be an interesting problem for the GAA given the rising numbers of Irish players within the AFL.

In the past, Ireland have been able to field one or two AFL-based players, such as Jim Stynes and Tadhg Kennelly. With nine such footballers currently on the books at Australian clubs, a question arises as to whether there should be a limit on the number of AFL players who could be used before International Rules turns into a version of the State of Origin competition.

Who'd have thought the Australian connection could generate such talking points before even a punch has been thrown?