Ireland manager Sean Boylan and captain Kieran McGeeney have put aside the negative talk that marred last year's International Rules series in Australia - highlighted by Chris Johnson's five-match suspension - to promote a spirited Test series, which kicks off on Saturday night in Galway at Pearse Stadium.Boylan and McGeeney were adamant that the series would be played hard, yet in the right manner."If the two of us go out with the right spirit, I think we're going to have a hell of a game and a competitive game - and it is a physical game - and we don't want for a moment ever to take that out of it, because it's part and parcel about what both of us are," Boylan said."But we want to make it a really, really good game and a really competitive game and at the end of the day the best team will win and Kevin (Sheedy) and I will shake hands and Dustin (Fletcher) and Kieran (McGeeney) will shake hands and that'll be it.""But I think it's up to every single one and we've all got a part to play in this, so we won't start a portion of the blame anywhere, because collectively we're in this together and it's up to us to have a really, really good series."McGeeney was realistic in his views towards how the series should be played."Most people who want to see boxing, go to the boxing and most people who want to see a football player go to a football match, but being a player and playing in it, I think it's a fantastic sport and I think it's got all the best things from both codes," McGeeney said."It's non-stop movement and it rewards the person and moves the ball on and it rewards the person that goes for the football and all of the rules are put in place there to make it a very physical game - yes - but it's also a very athletic and very skilful game.""I think when both teams are playing at their best - yes some things happen - but it's an aggressive sport and you look at any other aggressive sport and contact happens and people do lose their tempers and things do happen - things that you can't legislate for, but that happens in all contact sports.""It's probably a wee bit unfair to highlight like one or two incidents, albeit that nobody wants to see those incidents and things like that happen in all sports."Meanwhile, Boylan said the Irish needed the raise the bar significantly if it was to match the Aussies this year, after going down in 2005."Right from the very start when I was asked if I would like to become the Irish manager - the one thing that we did acknowledge … was the excellence of the Australian performance last year and an awful lot of what the Irish did as well was very, very good," Boylan said."But the amount of scores that we got and the way they got them and so on - they've bought it to a new level … and when we came in we said we'd try and aspire to that and if we can get as many points as we can on the board and play it as well as they did."