International Rules News: The Australian Institute of Sport-AFL Academy will tour South Africa next year should the annual youth series against Ireland be scrapped along with the senior version.

The country's best under-17 players would travel for two weeks at Easter under the emergency plans, which will kick in should the GAA choose to sever ties with the AFL after a meeting this weekend.

Under new proposals, the Australian team would train in South Africa, where interest in Australian football has grown rapidly and where the AFL is soon to appoint a football operations manager, before playing one or two games against the best of that country's players.

The AFL's general manager of game development, David Matthews, said planning for next year's trip to Ireland was well advanced. He hoped whatever decision the GAA made about the future of International Rules would still allow the youth series to go ahead. But he said the success of the indigenous team taken to South Africa this year - from which five players were picked at last month's national draft - proved it had strong developmental benefits.

"We know football's rapidly emerged over there, but it's still obviously a very low base. We don't expect that in the short term there's going to be equal competition, but we'd make age concessions and a few other concessions, with a view to lessening those concessions over time," Matthews said.

"It's a great country and there's some great experiences we could put the young players through. But at the moment both the GAA and AFL have committed to a lot of things for April and my view is that, no matter what else happens, it would be great to see that through."