"That's Mickey, " says Cavanagh. "You have to accept that he's not a fan of it [international rules] and when you know the man, you know he's going to stand up for his values. He hates the game." Cavanagh is the opposite. He loves it. He reckons it has less stoppages than Gaelic football, and strange as it may seem, given its notorious history and threat of excessive physicality, it's actually looser than Gaelic football too; you're not as tightly manmarked in it.

His clubmate Philip Jordan has long got over last year's infamous incident with Chris Johnson; in fact he's heading to Australia for the next three months, and hopes to maybe play international rules again there next year.

Cavanagh hopes to play it for as long as he can. "I don't know if it's because of the interchange or what, " he says, "but the game runs that bit more freely than our own."

Then there's the whole attraction of representing his country, something he ranks alongside playing in all those epic games against Dublin, Armagh and Kerry in recent years. "No matter what Mickey Harte or anyone else can say, " he contends, "it's the highest level any Gaelic footballer can reach at the moment."

Harte though can live with Cavanagh playing international rules. As long as he's not playing Australian rules.

The summer before last, the Brisbane Lions courted Cavanagh, and then when that summer was over, they made their move. It was impeccable in its time and setting. A fortnight after Tyrone had won the All Ireland, Cavanagh's Moy were knocked out of the Tyrone county championship. Waiting for him as he trooped out of the dressing room and into the pouring rain that evening in Edendork were the agent Gerard Scholly and the Lions' coach Graeme Allan. They handed him an envelope . . . a two-year professional football contract and an invite to the Brisbane sun and an escape from wet days in Edendork.

Cavanagh was tempted but after listening to Allan, he had to consult his own coach, Harte. Harte pointed out to him that while he had the potential and dedication to make it in Australian rules or any other game, greatness, with his late start in the sport, was probably beyond him.

Greatness in Gaelic football was not. At 22, he had secured his third All Star in three years. If he stayed, he had the chance to be remembered as one of the greatest midfielders, possibly Gaelic footballers, of all time . . . another Jack O'Shea.

His parents, Teddy and Dolores, were also critical sounding boards. He had completed his degree, a first-class honours in accounting from Jordanstown but there were still more accountancy exams to take. Ultimately Cavanagh's greatest confidante and advisor was his own heart. He was not Setanta or Aisake O hAilpin, 19 with a love of Australia and its game. He was 22, with a love of Gaelic football and Tyrone. A week after meeting Allan and Scholly in Edendork, he informed them he would be staying where he was. A trip to Australia a few weeks later with the Irish international rules team reaffirmed him he had made the right decision. It was a grand country to visit but not one where he'd want to live. Home was where the heart was and still is.

"I just love the life I have. I mean, I just love Gaelic football. People talk about how I could have made a living out of playing in the AFL but what value can you put on playing in front of 80,000 for Tyrone in Croke Park? It is priceless, literally. And all I've wanted to work at is as an accountant. Now I'm doing that and loving it. I love doing that from nine to five and then having the release of playing football in the evenings. I suppose, too, at the end of the day I'm a bit of a homebird. I wouldn't want to be doing anything else."

This year didn't go according to plan. From their first league game, the 'battle' of Omagh, Tyrone were on the back foot for the year. Then the injuries started to mount up. Cavanagh tried to lead the resistance but ultimately it was all futile. It was always going to be, with the quality of players unavailable. But some things jarred with him and with Harte. Harte would admit to the players that tactically he had got it wrong against Derry. Cavanagh admits that mentally the players got it wrong against them too. "For all the injuries we had, fellas were probably thinking, 'Ah, we'll still be alright.' Boys could have lifted it that bit more." A month later they were again outfought and out-thought in Portlaoise. For the first season since he started as a minor with Tyrone in 2001, Sean Cavanagh would not get to play in Croke Park for his county.

Both Harte and Cavanagh are determined that things will be different next year.

The Tuesday after the defeat to Laois, Harte called the whole panel together to start planning for 2007. Cavanagh already has. These days when he's not out training with the Moy or Ireland after work, he's in the gym, working on his leg strength. "I have to become a better fielder. I'm good on the ground but I'm not good enough in the air against the likes of Darragh O Se and Ciaran Whelan."

This past summer was spent in Chicago, working on the sites in the day and playing football with Wolfe Tones at night and the weekends.

Their biggest rivals were Niall Buckley's St Brendan's with Owen Mulligan there to help their cause. It was a bit strange, going up against Mulligan but it was offset by playing with another marquee forward, Graham Geraghty. Together they won the Chicago and North American championship. Now Australia is next on their to-do list.

The Tyrone county board haven't made it the easiest for Cavanagh. Although no other county has had as many players represent Ireland in the international rules since the series was revived in 1998, the board's stance to the series seems even more hostile than Harte's. This day two weeks ago he picked up a leg injury playing for the Moy.

It was little wonder he got injured; that morning he had just flown back from the Irish team's camp in Toulouse to help keep the team's push for league promotion alive. He had to leave Toulouse 36 hours earlier than his other Irish colleagues. Last Sunday then, less than 24 hours after playing for his country in Galway, he had to again play for his club, this time in Trillick, 50 miles away from the Moy. At least this weekend they've had the sense to postpone the game between the Moy and Stephen O'Neill's Clann na Gael; up to last Tuesday it had been pencilled in for yesterday.

It wasn't going to deter Cavanagh from playing for his country though. His passion for the cause was obvious last Saturday night. It was his weakest performance yet for Ireland since making his debut in 2004 yet it was Cavanagh who kick-started the Irish comeback with a magnificent over on the run at the start of the fourth quarter. He's been slagged quite a bit this past week about the way he'd sprint over the touchline when inter-changing with a colleague, and nearly bumping into the dugout and doing himself an injury, but that's just the way he is, totally committed to the cause.

He sees and appreciates that others are that way too.

"No disrespect to the management of '05, but I think this backroom team are more versed in the game itself, " he says. Then there's the captain. Probably Cavanagh's finest 10 minutes as a footballer were the closing minutes of last year's All Ireland semi-final. At the time he attributed that to the substitution of his marker Kieran McGeeney. Seeing McGeeney go off that day both perplexed and inspired him. How could Armagh do without him? How did Ireland do without him last year too?

"Last Friday in Galway, we were having a team meeting and he pointed to me. He said we were huge rivals, that there wasn't a bigger rivalry in football than Armagh and Tyrone and that at times on the field, in big pressure games, we probably hated each other because we had to hate each other. Now he was saying that we were fighting for each other because we had to fight for each other because our common cause was so great and that cause was Ireland's. If the two of us could get along, everyone on the team should get along.

And the other thing he said last week was we had to win that first game. It didn't matter how, or by how much; we had to win those 72 minutes.

Looking back on it now, it probably did drive us on. We all sort of came round to his mindset."

Cavanagh would have taken less time than others.

COBWEBS DUSTED OFF, IRELAND WILL SHADE IT Sorry, but any review or preview about this sport has to touch on the physical issue.

Since last week's tame affair in Galway, there is a school of opinion out there that the pubic are harping for something more akin to last year's, ahem, encounters. We're even being pedaled the line that there has been far too much made of 'one, isolated incident'. They seem to forget, or think we all forget, Chris Johnson's 'challenge' on Philip Jordan happened in the third quarter. It was merely the crescendo, not the opening chord, of a symphony of chaos. The intensity and physicality can open up a notch but that's no excuse for it to go up another notch or two above it.

As far as we can remember it was the way the likes of Donnellan and Fallon linked up in the second test in '98, not Akermanis wrestling with Canavan, that got Joe Public behind Ireland and behind this series. It was the brilliance of Stevie McDonnell and Joe Bergin's finish, not Kevin Reilly's tussle with Aaron Davey, that triggered last weekend's pitch invasion. It is the standard of football, not the physical stakes, that needs to increase significantly from Salthill.

It should. We need to remember two things about last week's game. Yes, it was a desperately poor, error-ridden game of international rules, but it was also this year's first game of international rules; how would you be at a sport you haven't played in a year, maybe two, or maybe never at all? The possibility of having a third test in future years has been raised this past week in talks between the AFL and the GAA and it makes sense, not just commercially but from a purely football perspective. Last week was dusting the cobwebs. Today should be the real thing.

Both teams' ball-retention will be better today but Ireland will need even more than that. For one, they should be aiming to have two goal-chances a quarter, and score at least one every 24 minutes. Either Ronan Clarke or Kieran Donaghy will have to offer more inside; if not Stephen O'Neill will have to be co-opted onto the 22; McDonnell can't be expected to do it all on his own again. Sean Cavanagh has to hit two or three overs.

Kieran McGeeney, for all his brilliance last weekend, needs to fine-tune his foot-passing as well as boss his line of the field like he did in Salthill, while Alan Quirke's kick-out has to be better too.

The Australians have a lot of good footballers with them. Barry Hall is more than an athlete; he is a footballer. So is Davey and so is Ryan O'Keeffe and we look forward today to seeing them play as much as McDonnell and Coulter. Who'll win? Toss up, though we have a hunch Ireland will shade it.

Let's just hope sport doesn't lose for the second straight year.

Verdict Ireland INTERNATIONAL RULES SERIES, SECOND TEST IRELAND (48) v AUSTRALIA (40) Croke Park, 2.00 Referees P McEnaney (Ireland) & S McInerney (Australia) Live, RTE Two, 1.45