And googling the words "International Rules Series" throws up over 32 million hits.

The International Rules series. A big story, though not, just in case this point needs revisiting, as big Down Under as Up Over. Last Thursday, the first mention of the series on the Melbourne Age's Real Footy webpage appeared 30 items down, a story about how Kevin Sheedy had selected a speedy squad for the trip. For the record, the sixth story on the page had the coach of the Brisbane Lions having a pop at the departing Jason Akermanis, who'd failed to play out last season after the club's match committee and senior players axed him for "failing to abide by team principles". You'll surely remember Akermanis who, in the first Test at Croke Park six years ago, inflicted more horrors on the Irish nation than any man since Cromwell, give or take Louis Walsh, depredations that led to Sports Spread Betting framing a special market on the second test entitled "Jason Acrimonious: How Many People Will He Hit Today?"

Akermanis, Cupido, the Big Dipper, John Todd, Nathan Buckley, Wayne Carey, Barry Hall. The bad, the mad, the gifted, the victimised and the extravagantly moustachioed. What a wild, weird and wonderful cast of characters the international rules, nee compromise rules, has brought into our living rooms.

At times our boys didn't know what hit them. Literally. Especially in the early days.

Ask Eoin Liston, who was playing for the hosts when a team coached by John Todd, the original Aussie mad dog, helped get the ball rolling 22 years ago. The visitors, among them the instantly recognisable Dipierdomenico ("a strong divil, " Liston recalls) were intent less on being good ambassadors for their country than on winning the series. "It was win at all costs on their part, they weren't taking any chances on losing to a group of amateurs and there was a lot of bad sportsmanship in that series, " Liston says. "The Australians were definitely bigger and stronger than us in 1984 and they still are to an extent. They had a big advantage in terms of upper-body strength. But since then it's only fair to say that there has been some fabulous football played during the various series without the violence, even if that crept back in a bit last year."

The international dimension, otherwise non-existent in both codes, was and remains the obvious carrot. While every Kerry player who was approached this year made himself available for trials, Liston, a member of the Irish management, accepts that the lure of the series is even greater for players from less successful counties. Tipperary's Derry Foley, for instance, was capped in 1998 and '99. It was as though a spaceship had whisked him from kicking football for Moyle Rovers in front of the usual couple of hundred hardy souls in Clogheen or Ballyporeen one minute to wearing the green in front of 66,000 at the MCG the next minute.

What was different? Everything, says Foley. The level of professionalism, the level of fitness, the context. This was a new world in every area. If he harbours one small regret, it was that he was reaching the end of his inter-county career when he was capped, as playing for Ireland brought the holistics of his game to a plane he'd been only vaguely aware existed during his previous 12 years with Tipperary.

What struck Foley most about the Irish management team of Colm O'Rourke, John O'Keeffe and Mickey Moran was their utter professionalism and ability to "analyse the game and find the Australian weaknesses". What struck him most about the game itself was its sheer intensity. "Take the hit, move on. Real high-octane stuff, not unlike Heineken Cup rugby, whereas gaelic football has become very stop-start and even laborious to watch." And what struck him most about the setting was that this was a step beyond club or even inter-county rivalry. "It was a battle between two countries. It wasn't just a game. There was an element of tribal warfare about it."

Tribal warfare of a different sort attended that 1999 trip to Australia. Two words.

Graham Geraghty.

The tourists were barely off the plane when a practice match took place against an academy side of local youngsters in Melbourne. The Irish media were present and at one stage saw Jim Stynes, the Australian Dub, blowing a gasket on the sideline and remonstrating with Colm O'Rourke. Despite an attempt by both the Irish and the Australians to hush up the incident afterwards, it soon emerged Geraghty had called his marker, Damien Cupido, a "black c**t". It was to the discredit of the Irish camp that few of them appeared to realise Geraghty had hurtled beyond the boundaries of common or garden verbal abuse and into the territory of crude racism, the offending epithet being not the c-word but the b-word. It was to the credit of Joe McDonagh that, in the absence of an adequate PR response from the GAA, the president recognised Geraghty's offence for what it was and seized the initiative in trying to resolve the issue.

For their pains in covering the story, the Irish media were hissed at on their way through the hotel foyer in Melbourne by the players who were waiting for a bus. Then there was the tale of the journalist who, subsequently getting into one of the lifts on the 37th floor to go to the ground floor, found it packed with glowering Irish players.

Instead of accompanying, he decided discretion was the better part of valour, pressed the button for the 36th floor, got out and took the next lift down. Not that readers need feel obliged to sympathise with those members of the press who took on the story properly and now look back on what they regard as an unpleasant trip, but one wonders if the players, who seemed to bond on the back of the Geraghty affair, have ever subsequently concluded that they might have found a more uplifting cause around which to rally.

From an Irish viewpoint, different concerns attend the 2006 series. They're trying to play catch-up after Australia reinvented their approach to the game last time around under the guidance of Kevin Sheedy. The Aussies didn't just beat Ireland in the first test last year, they vapourised them, 100 to 64. The overs count from the second half of the match makes for instructive reading: Australia seven and nine overs in the last two quarters respectively, Ireland zero and four. It didn't get much better in the second test, won by the locals on a score of 63 to 42; the home side recorded two and seven overs in the last two quarters, Ireland three and three. Remind us which crowd are supposed to be the naturals with the round ball again.

Derry Foley, who confesses to "empathising a bit" with the Australians' mindset towards the hybrid game ("we're turning it into soccer and I can see how they get angry and lose their tempers"), reckons that the return of Kieran McGeeney will bring a "certain level of guile and up-frontness to the Irish challenge that will be helpful". That'll be a start. Bring on the gladiators.