Gerry Thornley: IRFU can’t forget about the clubs in these trying times

When the IRFU announced last Friday that the 2019-20 club/domestic game was being abandoned for the season this news was soon overtaken later in the day when the union unveiled its graded salary deferrals for all provincial players and staff.

The amateur game has long since been dwarfed by its professional cousins, but while the provinces will remain as professional entities after the coronavirus pandemic, these are altogether more ominous times for the clubs.

The Irish clubs are not unique. While every effort will be made to somehow contrive relatively meaningful ends to the 2019-20 Pro 14 and Champions Cup, along with the rest of the elite professional game across Europe, the amateur/domestic game in the UK, France and Italy has also fallen by the wayside.

Nor will there be too many complaints from Irish clubs about the All-Ireland League being called off with no promotion or relegation, not least if doing so stems the spread of the coronavirus. All else is secondary. As it happens, there were only four rounds remaining plus play-offs, and there are some particular hard luck stories.

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Cork Constitution had virtually assured themselves of a home semi-final while Highfield were nine points clear in Division 1B and on the cusp of promotion.

However, re-starting the club season in summer is not practicable. The age profile of club teams has been coming down consistently in the professional era, so much so that many club teams feature students, and with exam time looming even the end-of-season playoffs can be problematic.

This time of year is generally set aside for both fund-raisers and countless numbers of mini-rugby tours abroad which have now been cancelled

What really upset most in the club game is that the union's announcement did not come with any indication of financial assistance, although it is understood that the IRFU's director of rugby, Colin McEntee – a former Lansdowne and Leinster number eight himself – and the union will be making an announcement to this end in the coming days.

In also abandoning the domestic/amateur season in France due to the Covid-19 crisis, the French Federation chairman Bernard Laporte immediately announced an aid package of €35 million to the club/amateur game.

Admittedly, there are over 1,800 clubs and over 350,000 registered players in France, so these things are relative, but the clubs in Ireland would dearly love to hear of some financial assistance from the IRFU.

The Welsh Rugby Union has announced that they are providing an additional €120,000 in funding for each club, and the Scottish RFU have promised almost €537,000 into their clubs.

What’s more, as well as the losses in revenue all the Irish clubs are now experiencing though no matchday revenue, this time of year is generally set aside for both fund-raisers and countless numbers of mini-rugby tours abroad which have now been cancelled, and not always with refunds.

As it is the clubs receive a fairly paltry part of the €11.2 million which the IRFU reserves for the domestic game. According to the union’s end-of-year financial report in April 2019, €1.25million is invested in the clubs, and almost €800,000 in the schools.

Most clubs seem to receive in the region of €10,000 to €15,000, considerably down on five or six years ago, through the club support scheme and in travel expenses. But this is eaten up by the estimated €2,500 insurance costs for each team a club oversees.

The schools are rightly given huge credit for their conveyor belt of readymade professionals, most obviously through the likes of St Michael’s College, Blackrock College and others in Leinster.

Yet almost every single, Irish-produced professional player in the four provinces began playing mini-rugby from the ages of six to 12 in clubs. In near all cases by the time they enter secondary school at the age of 13 they have learned an invaluable grounding in the basics of the game, be it passing, catching, tackling or running with the ball. Yes, the semi-professional set-ups in some schools fine tune these players, but it’s through the clubs that the players first picked up a rugby ball and developed their initial passion for the game.

Ian Madigan, Dan Leavy, Luke McGrath, Ross Byrne and Nick McCarthy all began playing mini-rugby at Old Belvedere. Ditto James Ryan, whose father Mark played for the club, Ross Molony, Hugo Keenan, Scott Penny and others at Lansdowne. Plenty more played club rugby at under-20 and senior level.

There are in and around 70,000 boys and girls playing rugby at under-12 level down, with almost the same number of teenagers, who would mostly be playing at school although not entirely.

The future has never seemed so uncertain for all of us. Nothing will be the same again, and rugby is no exception

In truth, the club game is far more of a reflection of our weeks and lives than the professional game, which operates within more of a bubble, if also providing vastly more entertainment for society as a whole.

As well as college exams in many instances, club players have jobs (or at least did have until recently) in most cases, and also families to worry about.

There are 224 rugby clubs in Ireland, of which 50 enjoy senior status. Furthermore, while there are four professional teams in Ireland with close to 200 registered players – be they senior, development or academy, there are over 25,000 male and female adults playing rugby in Ireland.

While this also highlights the huge drop off in the numbers playing rugby after leaving school, it is fairly commonplace throughout all sports.

In any case the club game now faces an indefinite lockdown of at least six months since the end of February until the start of the 2020-21 season. All things being equal a mid-September start would be preferable to the mid-October start last year, as it would also allow more elbow room for re-arranging games.

Whatever else, the Energia All-Ireland League should be given priority over a Celtic Cup or any made-up end-of-season jaunt to the USA for some mickey mouse competition.

The future has never seemed so uncertain for all of us. Nothing will be the same again, and rugby is no exception. Who’s to say how many will resume training and playing?

But talking to several people within club rugby there is a valid fear that this spell of inactivity (the longest since the Second World War) will hasten the reduction in playing numbers and that this, in turn, may even hasten the demise of some clubs.

gthornley@irishtimes.com