By Jerome Quinn BBC Sport

Is it just me, or have the new All Ireland Champions been snubbed by Ireland Manager John O'Keeffe for the International Rules Series with Australia?

There's just two Armagh players on the panel for Sunday's first Test - Kieran McGeeney and Paul McGrane.

Now I know the boys have been celebrating their historic success and there are Club Championship games to be played, so many of the Armagh players have not been in a position to attend all the training sessions, but only two?

Andrew McCann and Enda McNulty both work and reside in Dublin.

And what about the likes of Paddy McKeever, John Toal or Kieran Hughes? I would have thought that these players would be perfect for the Rules game.

Manager O'Keeffe has three selectors - Martin Carney, Peter McGinnity and Matt Connor, and between them, they named a preliminary panel of 51 a while back for training purposes.

There were seven Galway players in that panel, six each from Kerry and Tyrone, five from Dublin, four from Meath, three each from Cork and Donegal, and two each from Kildare, Limerick, Offaly and Armagh.

Of course, the management weren't to know that Armagh would go on to lift the Sam Maguire, but why were McGeeney and McGrane the only players considered from the outset?

Ronan Clarke was taken on board later, but is only on stand-by.

In 2001, All Ireland champions Galway had three players on the final team.

I suspect that the Dublin media have been taken by surprise by Armagh's great win.

As for the selectors, could they not have used this year to blood some new Ulster players for the Rules game?

With stalwarts Tohill, McCabe and Canavan stepping aside, why not try the likes of Adrian Sweeney, Michael Walsh, or goalkeepers Mickey McVeigh and Sean McGreevy?

I see that smaller counties such as Longford and Wexford have had players in the reckoning, so why not Antrim?

It would have been a great boost for them, and for the rest of Ulster if new players had been included.

As it is, I wonder how many supporters from Ulster will bother to make the trip to Dublin for the games with only Armagh and Tyrone represented on the Irish team.

FOOTNOTE: True story. I was in Croke Park this week to report on Kieran McGeeney winning the Vodafone All Star of the Month Award.

I asked if I could do an interview with Kieran in the presentation area in the Hogan Stand.

Liam Mulvihill kindly obliged and escorted Kieran, myself and a cameraman from high up in the Cusack Stand down to the corner of the pitch.

"You can go across the grass", said Liam as he went back to the function.

"Get off the grass"

Kieran and I were half way across the pitch when a lumimous coat jumped out and yelled in a thick Dublin accent: "Ger off de pitch!".

We tried to explain that Mr Mulvihill had granted us permission, but the official looked straight at Kieran and asked: "And who would you be?"

I wouldn't mind, but this wasn't the first time he had asked Kieran to get off the grass.

The last time? An hour after winning the Final, when Kieran and Justin McNulty went back out onto the pitch to savour the day.

And they wonder why we're paranoid!

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