The only thing that really took him by surprise was the embellished reaction that followed the events.

"When the GAA decided to continue with this series last year they should have realised that the Aussie male footballer is never going to change, " he says. "They want to win at all costs. The Aussie rules male is a totally different animal.

They're cocky. They're arrogant. We're amateurs and they look down on us. As sports people go, they're not nice people and anyone who has played them in the international rules will tell you that. When you take them on, you must realise that nice people don't beat them."

Tommy Carr, a member of the 1990 Irish team that travelled to Australia, reckons the decreasing physicality in Gaelic football is a contributing factor to Ireland's demise in the series.

"One of the difficulties for us is that the strong, tough element of the Irish game is being legislated and refereed out of our game. We're not able to handle it now and some of the things players get sent off for here are far too tame. So on Sunday you had a situation where the players played with a lack of courage and a fear of being hit every time they got the ball."

Flynn himself is well acquainted with some of the strong-arm tactics practiced by the Australians. He was top scorer in the series in 1987 and 1990, contributions that effectively daubed a bull's eye on his back. There were hits and plenty of them.

"It's always been like that, which is why I can't understand some of the serious complaining that's gone on and the reaction is over the top.

"People have short memories. I can remember players getting busted jaws, busted noses and the matches in the 80s and 90s were far dirtier. I thought this year was the tamest series I've ever seen apart from the first quarter on Sunday. I don't condone any of the antics that went on in that first quarter and nobody wants to see Sean Boylan in the state he was in after the game, but when are we going to pick teams that will put their necks on the block?

"The guys I played with would have gone through a stone wall in the Irish jersey. If the Aussies see a weak team they can exploit physically, they'll go for the jugular and they won't stop until they have them beat into submission."

Infamously now, the early stages contained enough confrontations to impel Sean Boylan to bring his players into the dressing room after the first quarter, where the option of not returning was put forward.

"That was a very bad move, psychologically, " says Carr.

"When they're asked do they want to call a game off, how do players go back out and perform for the next three quarters knowing the management want to take them off because the game is too rough. Straight away they have a reason not to perform. And given the talk that was coming from the Australians all week, it wasn't wise to start Graham Geraghty. He should have been interchanged every seven or eight minutes, but definitely not started."

Flynn is also concerned with the breakdown of the Irish team, particularly over the past number of tests.

"The effort over the last couple of years by some of the Irish players isn't good enough. It's not manly enough and it's not gutsy enough. If Irish players treat it as a junket or a bit of craic, they should not be there. Last Sunday you have to wonder where the courage of the Irish players was for the last three quarters of the match."

Carr can see serious contradictions in the attitude of the media and public following the opening test in Galway and its successor in Croke Park.

"The problem I have is I listened to Kevin McStay and co at the Galway game say how it lacked physicality and then when we get it after five minutes on Sunday its suddenly disgraceful and out of place. You can't have it both ways."

Ultimately, says Flynn, the series has to continue.

"We owe it to Cormac McAnallen, the brave player whose name is on the trophy, to give it another chance. But the GAA will have to wake up and smell the roses and realise that the Aussies will never do what the powers that be ask of them. It's up to Ireland to pick a team that will compete in all departments. The competition shouldn't be stopped now under this cloud. We can't leave it like this with the shite being kicked out of us last year and now this year and next time we've got to remember that nice guys don't beat the Aussies."