Struggling with injury, marriage and other plans

Injury and post All-Ireland commitments have reduced the expected impact of the Galway and Kerry footballers' return to the Irish International Rules panel for Sunday's second and conclusive test with Australia at Croke Park.

Between that and county finals, club relegation play-offs, and a wedding, team manager Brian McEniff is enduring a worst-case scenario as he completes his final preparations over the next three days.

Yesterday evening in Dublin, McEniff assembled his panel for the penultimate practice session. Goalkeeper Declan O'Keeffe travelled up from Kerry, but both Seamus Moynihan and Darragh O Se were involved with the county's charity GOAL challenge with Cork last night and what role they will play on Sunday remains to be seen.

Galway's Sean de Paor and Padraig Joyce also attended, as did Michael Donellan, but with his ankle in a cast due to a hairline fracture suffered in the All-Ireland final, his participation has been ruled out.

There are also some injuries within the panel following the eight-point loss last Sunday. Mayo's Colm McManaman is suffering from a back problem and could be doubtful, and there were also minor knocks to Cavan's Larry Reilly (calf muscle) and Meath's Darren Fay (thigh injury).

But Peter Canavan's nose is not broken, contrary to some earlier fears, and the remainder of the squad carry a clean bill of strength. The team will get together for their final practice session on Saturday morning. Originally it was supposed to be Friday evening, but with Galway's Ja Fallon getting married that same night, a host of players would have been unavailable.

"The last thing we needed was another session with those players missing," said McEniff yesterday. "And there are problems on Saturday as well. The Dublin county final involves Jonathan Magee and Kieran McGeeney and the Kildare county semi-final takes out Glen Ryan.

"There's also a relegation battle in Dublin involving Ciaran Whelan's club. I didn't realise it would be quite as difficult as this, but I appreciate the necessity to play club features and you just have to live with it. But the biggest problem was really the drawn All-Ireland.

"But just because we're getting another goalkeeper and three players coming back into the squad doesn't necessarily make us a better team for Sunday."

McEniff has already dissected the video of Sunday's game and, as well as focusing on aspects of the game where he feels the Irish can improve, he is also more aware of the strengths of the Australian side.

"The fact that we didn't get a lot of marks close to goal compared to them is one thing. And the fact that we didn't defend against their marks, especially in the latter stages of the third quarter when they pulled back from 12 points to three. And again in the fourth quarter when we flagged.

"In terms of the minutes played, this is something the Irish will always find very difficult to cope with. So the inter-change of players is going to be very important in trying to keep the players fresh and then finish with as strong a team as possible."

With 30,000 tickets already pre-sold for Sunday, Croke Park is expecting an attendance approaching 50,000 - the total figure that attended the two games in Croke Park two years ago. The Irish haven't faced such a deficit since the series was restarted, but McEniff remains confident that they can make a game of it.

"Of course I'm confident, but I'm always confident. It was difficult in the dressing room after the first day because they could see the game slipping away from them, and they were too physically and mentally tired to do a whole lot about it.

"It's only a goal and a couple of points I know, but that's a reasonable lead and the fact that they are physically stronger means that we will have to apply ourselves all the better and convert our scoring opportunities in much better fashion than we did last Sunday.

"Most of all, we'll have to be a lot more clinical in finishing. I think we missed something like five goal chances and that is the key area to improve on the next day."

There are already talks taking place between the GAA and Australia's AFL to extend the series beyond the four-year experimental phase, the final series of which will take place in Australia next year.