Joyce may be fit to face the Australians

International Rules News: Ireland coach Pete McGrath is still holding out hope Galway's Padraic Joyce could play in next month's International Rules series against Australia. Joyce was announced as Irish captain this month, but two weeks ago withdrew from the panel after suffering a recurrence of an old groin injury.

Although he has undergone a minor operation which it was thought would rule him out of action for 12 weeks, Joyce could yet be in line for a dramatic recall. McGrath was due to name a new captain last weekend but has deferred the decision until getting the final word from Joyce.

"Padraic had been such a unanimous choice that when we first heard he was injured we decided we'd let the matter sit for a while," explained McGrath. "And that we'd see how many players emerged as natural candidates. At first it also seemed totally unrealistic to expect him to play any role, but we're hopeful now that he might make it. So we'll hold out for as long as we can."

With less than three weeks to go before the series, which Ireland haven't won for three years, time is clearly not on Joyce's side. But yesterday the Galway forward admitted there was a possibility of making a return.

"I have been in regular contact with Pete but still need to talk with him some more," said Joyce. "I am still recovering from the operation, so we'll have to wait another week or so and see."

The first Test takes place on Sunday, October 17th, and the second is a week later - both at Croke Park - but McGrath is not due to finalise his panel until the weekend before.

In the meantime, the former Down manager is satisfied with the progress of his provisional training panel. Cork hurler and former dual player Seán Óg Ó hAilpín was said to be "very impressive" when called into the panel this past weekend, with current AFL player Tadhg Kennelly also showing excellent form.

Yesterday McGrath began the process of personally contacting the 10 panel members who were part of Sunday's All-Ireland football final - five each from Kerry and Mayo. They are Kerry's Eoin Brosnan, Tomás Ó Sé, Declan O'Sullivan, Colm Cooper and Michael McCarthy, and Mayo's David Heaney, Ciarán McDonald, Ronan McGarrity, Trevor Mortimer and James Nallen.

"I deliberately hadn't make contact with them yet," said McGrath. "It just would have been unfair to physically interfere with them in any way in the countdown to an All-Ireland final. The view of my selectors and myself was that we'd let the final take its own course and approach them after that.

"Obviously I wanted to contact them personally, and I decided to leave that until today. I will be saying how important they all are to us, and that I'd be hoping they could all make it their priority. And I'm confident that they will. We only have the two weekends left now, so commitment now is very important."

In the meantime, McGrath has praised the initial commitment: "We're more than happy with the squad we have at the moment. And to be honest Seán Óg had been on our minds. He came up for the weekend for a trial and, in fairness to him, he's in there taking his chance. But I have to say he was very impressive. He's certainly not short of match fitness. In fact he's in fantastic physical shape. He's also a great ball player, and had no problems whatsoever adapting to the game.

"Setanta Ó hAilpín is also starting to look very good. To be honest, the first night he was having problems readjusting to the round ball. But we gave him a few of them going back home, and he'd certainly improved an awful lot last Friday.

"And of course Tadhg Kennelly is also looking very, very good. He fitness level is extremely high and it's obvious he's going to play a huge part for us."

Normally the Irish panel is reduced to 28, but being based at home this year means McGrath has found some extra freedom. There has been another defection, with Tyrone's Stephen O'Neill the latest to opt out, but the 24 players who participated in last weekend's training and practice match at Ballymun in Dublin all impressed McGrath.

"There is still some pruning to be done," he admitted, "and there will be hard decisions to make. Some very good players will lose out. But I think that as we're based at home it's far better to have the extra couple of players. We've seen from recent years how easy it is for players to get injured right up to the game itself, and I think it's better to have the extra players with us rather than call them in. So it's our intention to have a final panel of 30.

"And we are still hampered to a large extent by the various club championships around the country. Mattie Forde, for example, was in club action on Saturday and that kept him out. But that's just something we have to cope with. It's the perennial problem for the International Rules."

Adult stand tickets (€20) for both Tests are available from gaa.ie, with family and other concession tickets available from Croke Park. Both Tests will start at 2.0, with the curtain-raiser the first day a camogie exhibition, and the second the Interprovincial Championship semi-final.