This weekend marks the start of the international campaign. It should help morale that Ireland will face a very busy schedule against the immediate background of two provinces having qualified for the quarter-finals of the European Cup. Those two provinces, Munster and Ulster are coached by Irish coaches, Declan Kidney and Harry Williams.

Now cast your mind back to the time Declan Kidney was appointed as Munster coach and more recently when Harry Williams was appointed as Ulster coach.

The fact that foreign coaches were not in place with those provinces was described as another indictment on the IRFU. "Another shambles" was one description. Both provinces a few years ago did, in fact, appoint outside coaches. Ulster had one for one season, but subsequently when the IRFU put the machinery in place for all the provinces to have full-time coaches, the men appointed by Munster and Ulster did not take up the jobs after initially accepting them.

"Who wants to go on the road to nowhere with the Irish provinces and the IRFU. The Irish players should all go to England. Irish rugby is going nowhere." That quote is on the record from one of the critics who, if he could, would blame the IRFU for the national debt. The fact that it came from someone who has scarcely seen half a dozen matches in this country over the last few years proved no deterrent, but then facts never do to the destructive. Warren Gatland took one of those provincial coaching positions and did a fair old job with Connacht. Mike Ruddock took one up. Fortune dealt him a fickle hand this season. But the talent is there for Leinster to come back, and Ruddock need not despair or feel guilty. Connacht, too, will come again.

Their season ended in disappointment, yet what Connacht achieved in the last few seasons was scarcely conceivable even two years ago. But the two home-based men, Kidney and Williams, have proved their worth and that is an important point.

Even without the English clubs and the Welsh rebels Cardiff and Swansea, the European Cup it is still a very good competition. It draws infinitely bigger crowds than most of the matches in the over-rated and inflated Allied Dunbar League.

Interprovincial rugby has always been of crucial importance to the game in this country at every level from schools right through to senior and always will. This season's interprovincial series was the best I can remember. The decision to make it a double programme was a splendid innovation. Some of the matches in Europe, too, have been captivating. The return of the players from England has, of course been a major help to the provinces. Others will return next season and we have kept the best of our young talent at home. Someone in authority in this country is doing something correctly.

Sincere enough sentiments and playing objectives were stated by some players as they left for England. But disillusionment soon set in.

Then this season there was the comment from the current coach to London Irish Dick Best: "The IRFU are throwing big money at players to lure them away from the English clubs." That sure is a classic quote, bearing in mind what lured most of the Irish players and some of the pensioners from the southern hemisphere to England in the first place.

The success of Munster and Ulster in the European Cup is as yet relative, and tough tests lie ahead, but it is a great boost to Irish rugby and indeed an incentive to Irish coaches. Harry Williams has been on the coaching scene for quite a while. He was a very successful coach to the Ulster team some years ago. He coached the Ireland A side and now, given a squad of players to work with that embraces quality, he has done a splendid job.

I had seen Declan Kidney's work at first hand when he was coach to Presentation Brothers College Cork. He was an excellent coach to the Ireland schools side and led the team to a Triple Crown and very nearly to two. Last season he was coach to the Ireland under-19 team which won the World Cup.

Now he has done it at senior representative level. He has very able allies and one could scarcely ask for better than Niall O'Donovan as assistant and a man like Jerry Holland. Harry Williams, too, has able and astute men at his side.

On another front, I want to make reference to a player whose representative career ended last weekend. This is the era when players change clubs and even change countries in pursuit of gain without blinking an eye. Never mind club and national affinity. Club loyalty is rapidly becoming a thing of the past. But there are those whose loyalty has been tested and who have remained steadfast and loyal to clubs when, had they moved on to greener pastures, it could well have meant more honours and in recent seasons more money.

Last Saturday in the Sports Ground in Galway Billy Mulcahy played his last match for Connacht. Connacht's season is over and so, too, is Mulcahy's representative career. He has informed Connacht he will not be playing on next season at provincial level.

Billy Mulcahy got little in the way of money out of the game, but what an incredible amount he put into it. He represents the very best element of the game and his reward was the joy of playing it. Never by word or deed did he ever do anything but add lustre to a great family tradition and a great game.

One could say `like father, like son', for young Billy, if I may be so bold as to call him young at 34, is the son of a famous father, Bill senior. He captained Ireland, played for the Lions and has put an immense amount back into rugby as coach, selector, medical officer and more recently as Skerries representative on the Leinster Branch of which he is a former president.

Apart from his famous father, Billy's uncle the late Sean Murphy was a stalwart of the Ballina club and of the Connacht Branch. Sean served on the IRFU back in the seventies, was president of the Connacht Branch and Billy's first cousin Peter was president of the Connacht Branch last season. It was that kind of strong family connection that led Billy to declare for Connacht a decade ago after a very brief flirtation with Leinster.

Billy has been with the Skerries club since he was a 10-year-old attending De La Salle College. Through the years the offers and the overtures came in for a player who would have got into almost any senior club side in this country. But his loyalty never wavered. He won six caps for Ireland at B and A levels, but never the ultimate honour - it would not have been misplaced. He has been a major contributor in helping Skerries rise from the fourth division of the All-Ireland League through to the second and come within a point of making it to the first. He led the club to the final of the Leinster Senior Cup last season. Those are the rewards that Billy treasures. " It was interesting to be in at the start of professional era. But the game for me has been about enjoyment and not money and I have enjoyed very minute of my career," he said. With players like him around, how reassuring it is to know that at least some of the best of the old values still remain.