Event | International Rules Series | ||||||
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Ireland won by 4 points | |||||||
Date | 21 November 2015 | ||||||
Venue | Croke Park, Dublin, County Dublin | ||||||
Man of the Match | Bernard Brogan (Ireland) | ||||||
Man of the Match | Harry Taylor (Australia) | ||||||
Referee | Joe McQuillan (Ireland) Mat Nicholls (Australia) |
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Attendance | 38,386 | ||||||
The 2015 International Rules Series (officially the 2015 EirGrid International Rules Test) was contested between Gaelic footballers from Ireland and Australian footballers from Australia. The 19th series of International rules football since the concept's inception in 1984, Australia entered the test as defending champions, following their 10-point victory in the solitary test match in 2014. The match was played at the headquarters of the Gaelic Athletic Association, Croke Park, on Saturday, 21 November.
As per the previous year, the series was a single one-off test match, with the winner of the test match claiming the Cormac McAnallen Cup. Ireland were the winners of the series, defeating Australia by 4 points.
Newly elected GAA President Aogan O' Fearghail had the luxury of choosing a new Irish management team, after the traditional two-year stint for former manager Paul Earley expired at the conclusion of the previous series. In March 2015, the GAA announced former All-Ireland winning Armagh manager Joe Kernan as the new manager of the Irish team.
Kernan spoke of a desire to emphasise the skills component of the game in his selection policy. He was joined on the selection panel by Pádraic Joyce, Darragh Ó Sé and Dermot Earley. On 24 October 2015, the GAA announced that Dublin's three-time All-Ireland winning forward Bernard Brogan would be appointed captain of the Ireland team for test match against Australia. Speaking of the appointment, Brogan stated "it is both an honour and a privilege to not only represent Ireland, but to captain the national team too. As footballers, opportunities to play for Ireland and pit our skills against athletes from other nations and codes are few and far between and next month we will test ourselves against arguably the strongest ever Australian team to come here."Mayo footballer and two-time All Star Lee Keegan was named vice-captain.