More must be at stake in the Celtic League

RUGBY/On Rugby: It's all in the perception. There remains a less than wholehearted commitment to the Celtic League within Munster and Leinster, who feel the 22-game format is too demanding, yet an end-of-season trek to Ravenhill showed the competition remains vibrant in Ulster, writes Gerry Thornley.

And according to the Ulster coach Alan Solomons, the provinces' contrasting commitment and performances reflect a mental attitude as much as anything else.

Solomons, perhaps less constrained in his public utterances recently given his imminent departure to Northampton, became Irish rugby's most passionate advocate of the Celtic League. Describing it as "the lifeblood" of professional rugby in the Celtic countries, Solomons drew comparisons with the Currie Cup in South Africa, the NPC in New Zealand, the Premiership in England and the French club championship.

Solomons conceded his views might have been coloured differently had international call-ups and injuries compelled him to use upwards of 50 players, as Munster and Leinster did.

Furthermore, the Currie Cup and the NPC place nothing like the same demands on their provinces, while the French players are threatening to go on strike in response to yet a further expansion of their championship. It is probably no coincidence that the French are becoming the biggest importers of players, apart from England where the presence of rich benefactors has also helped swell the numbers plying their trade on Premiership grounds.

One only had to look at Sunday's semi-final between a ruthless Wasps and Northampton to highlight how we are into apples-and-oranges territory. Wasps had only four players who were part of England's World Cup squad, and Northampton just three (the injured Matt Dawson would have been a fourth). Warren Gatland has sought out players such as the South African Mark van Gisbergen and the retired Welsh outhalf Robert Howley, while Wayne Smith's European Heineken Cup squad this season had eight non-England qualified players.

So it is somewhat misleading of the IRFU to say that the 22-game format of the Celtic League is merely aping the 22-game Premiership, for whereas Leinster and Munster have to cope with greater Test demands while working off squads of just 33 full-timers, Wasps' squad numbers 44.

Comparisons with the Welsh are similarly misleading, given they have a stronger semi-professional domestic league propping up their five districts. They are restricted merely to two non-EU passport holders, while the Irish provinces can carry only two non-Ireland qualified players.

Solomons may be right in suggesting that the lack of zeal towards the Celtic League in Leinster and Munster was reflected in their performances. But in this, to some extent, they are merely reflecting the attitude of the IRFU, for the union has not followed its Celtic cousins in deciding that final standings within the Celtic League will be the qualifying criteria for the European Cup.

Nothing quite irks the Welsh and Scots more than this, for they feel that if Ireland followed suit it would greatly add to the league's lustre. No doubt it would. Certainly, it would have given more of an edge to the end-of-season performances from Leinster, Munster and Connacht, all of whom had nothing to play for, whereas those three Welsh teams not in the running for the title were scrambling to avoid a fifth ranking and with it demotion to the Parker Pen Challenge Cup.

(The carrot of an end-of-season Celtic Cup for the top eight next season will only partially address this problem.)

However, setting aside its reluctance to give Connacht a chance of elbowing out one of the three bigger provinces, in this the union is in something of a Catch 22.

As it happened, Munster and Leinster finished above Connacht, who performed more than creditably as the development province given their Celtic Cup and Parker Pen semi-finals runs as well. But had Leinster not overtaken Connacht on the final weekend, would it have been a fair means of qualifying for next season's European Cup, given Leinster provided 11 of Ireland's World Cup squad and upwards of the same number of Six Nations' weekends?

Munster's signing of Paul Burke is a clear statement of intent for next season, and they and Leinster will hardly have the disruptions or injuries they suffered this season. One could also argue that next season will be different in that no World Cup and no Celtic League matches will take place on Six Nations' weekends (save, possibly, for one interprovincial round).

But will it differ that much? The coming warm-up match for the South African tour has obliged all of the contracted players to delay their holidays, leaving them just a four-week break before pre-season training in the last week of June. Their pre-season will be about seven weeks, before the provinces begin their warm-up friendlies in the middle of August.

The 26 players chosen for the tour will wind up their season on Saturday, June 19th, and will also have four weeks' holidays, before returning for a 10-week pre-season. This will probably rule them out of the first four rounds of Celtic League matches anyway. Ultimately, one suspects that the frontline players will be "available" for barely half the provinces' Celtic League matches.

So, until they have squads of 40-45 contracted players, or the Celtic League has fewer games, Leinster and Munster won't be competing on a level playing field. Therefore, giving the Celtic League the added significance of being a qualifier for the European Cup has inherent pitfalls.

But without that carrot of European Cup qualification, many of this season's problems will remain.