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Our Man in Oz with the International Rules team is Cormac Farrell. Cormac has been accompanying the players on their travels Down under as they’ve taken in the sights and sounds of Adelaide, met the local Irish expat community and attended a reception in the O’Neills Australia HQ hosted by our Australia Sales Manager, Antoinette Brophy. After a few days R&R the players arrived in Perth to prepare for the second Test at the Subiaco. They also took time out to visit the Famine and Immigration memorial recently unveiled by Uachtarán na hÉireann Michael D. Higgins during his State visit.
Here are some extracts from Cormac’s Tour Diary.
The official Ireland International Rules party touched down in Melbourne around 7.30pm after a brief stop off in Abu Dhabi. After 20 hours of flying, safe to say there were some tired bodies out there! The first loosening up training session takes place on Tuesday morning in the local Wesley College grounds.
As Tuesday is a bank holiday for the Global Melbourne Cup racing festival, the city is in carnival mode! Ireland is strongly represented at the Flemington Park race track and would really kick things off positively if the winner wore Irish colours!
On Thursday, we're off to visit the O'Neills office in Adelaide to meet up with the sales team. The Mayfair Hotel will be the venue on Friday afternoon, where O'Neills will host a small reception to welcome the Ireland squad, kitted out in their 2017 Ireland International Rules gear. Ireland boss, Joe Kernan and captain, Aidan O'Shea will attend a photoshoot as O'Neills Australasia Sales Manager, Antoinette Brophy, will be introduced to all visitors.
Looking forward to a great week ahead! #GAA
Wednesday afternoon saw the squad play a two period game between themselves in the original Richmond stadium on the Punt Road. All players came through unscathed and afterwards headed to the beach for a sea water cooldown. The party leaves for Adelaide on Thursday as the first test countdown begins!
It's been quite a weekend for our team here in Australia. Following a welcome dinner for both squads in the Adelaide Town Hall last week, O'Neills Sportswear hosted a small reception for the Ireland International Rules squad in Adelaide's Mayfair Hotel on Friday. The lads were in great spirits ahead of the first test and O'Neills were delighted to spend some time with the panel and a number of special guests.
The next stop was the Adelaide Oval. The First test had finally arrived. Yesterday's result in Adelaide was not what we hoped for but we must look at the positives, encouraging scoring displays from Conor McManus (25) and Micheal Murphy (20) give Ireland every opportunity to overcome the 10-point deficit in Perth on Saturday. We go again! Come on Ireland! #InternationalRules #GAA
On Wednesday evening the official touring party were invited to the Irish Club in Subiaco. Some four weeks previous, Irish President Michael D. Higgins unveiled the newly erected memorial in Subiaco to Irish immigrants fleeing the ravages of the Famine who came into Australia from 1845-1852.
A small ceremony was conducted by GAA president Aogán Ó Fearghaíl at this memorial site in the company of the full Irish party.
Subiaco is the area where Saturday’s second test will take place. A huge Irish welcome was provided and after dinner players mixed with the many excited Irish fans. Irish eyes are now fixed not the Second Test. Not before we welcomed Monaghan’s Darren Hughes to the party. Darren’s attitude was have jersey will travel, when he received the call from Joe Kernan to join the group, the immediate concern was getting Darren a team jersey. Not a problem for O’Neills! Within hours we had produced and delivered two personalised match jerseys for Darren to take with him on his flight.