LAST week was one of considerable significance for Irish rugby. It marked the end of Irish involvement in the European Cup and the European Conference. Then we had the announcement of the Ireland team to meet Western Samoa, the first of seven internationals Ireland will play between next week and next March. The A side to meet the Junior Springboks was also selected, perhaps a selection of more significance in the long term.

The failure of any of the Irish provinces to make it to the quarter finals of the European competitions is disappointing. However, all four Irish provincial coaches will have taken some satisfacition from the competitions.

One of the features of the competition was that "only two of the 20 teams managed to win all their" matches. They were Leicester and Brive. There is no doubt either that home advantage was of considerable significance. Cardiff coach Terry Holmes made that point very strenuously after his side had beaten Munster in Wales. Toulouse centre Thomas Castagneide was equally emphatic on that issue after his side beat Munster last Saturday.

While Munster scored what was undoubtedly the best win of any of the Irish provinces in the great performance against Wasps, the unluckiest of the provincial sides was Leinster, while Ulster did not enjoy a great deal of good fortune either. In the end, Leinster got edged out on points difference by Llanelli. In the case of both Ulster and Leinster, failure to make home advantage pay proved costly. All eight teams who qualified won their home matches.

There is also a telling lesson with regard to professionalism. The Irish provinces were at a big disadvantage. Munster lost the services of five players who were not released by their English clubs, while Leinster and Ulster lost out in that respect too. Munster had just three full time professional players in their side - David Corkery, Gabriel Fulcher and Richard Wallace - together with home based contracted players Mick Galwey, Stephen McIvor, Brian Walsh, Dominic Crotty and Anthony Foley. Leinster had English based players Henry Hurley, Victor Costello, Paul Wallace, Malcolm O'Kelly and Martin Ridge, who recently signed a contract with Moseley. Their only Irish home based contracted player is Niall Hogan, who plays with Oxford University until after Christmas. Ulster had three English based contracted players in Jeremy Davidson, Paddy Johns and David Humphreys. James Topping, Denis McBride and Maurice Field are Ulster's only Irish based contracted players.

There is a definite message there. Professionalism has put Ireland and Scotland at a distinct disadvantage. Significantly, Scotland have also failed to get a representative into the quarterfinals. Then we are told by among others Ireland coach Murray Kidd that professionalism is good for Irish rugby. The IRFU's intention to put up to 100 players on contract next season could go some way to redressing the balance. Contracting the players to the provinces through the union could well be the path that will be pursued.

Irish provinces cannot sign rugby league players on shun term contracts. The sides who qualified are, in the main, made up of full time professional players supplemented in some cases by short term contracted rugby league players. That is very significant.

I must confess to a great deal of disappointment at aspects of the Ireland teams selected for the two matches next week. The decision of the selectors to name New Zealander Ross Nesdale on the substitutes bench for the A team is indefensible. I do not doubt Nesdale's Irish heritage. I know little about his ability as I have never seen him play. But then again neither have at least three of the five selectors.

Here is a player who has never made any contribution whatsoever to Irish rugby at any level. He is playing for English second division side Newcastle and is chosen as a substitute on a national team. Irish based hookers such as Terry Kingston, Stephen Ritchie, Barry Browne, James Blaney and Billy Mulcahy have been ignored. What will be learned about Nesdale while he sits on the bench. I am not interested in how well he trains: that is not what selection is supposed to be about. If he has something to offer Irish rugby, let him prove it in the Irish system, the same way as Irish players must do.

When I asked about Nesdale at the team announcement I was told in almost reverential terms by Kidd that Nesdale has played for Auckland. So what? There are times when it appears that the Irish coach seems to think that we should bow to everything coming from New Zealand. To its personnel, its system of coaching and to its structures. We have been in this game at the top level for over 120 years. There are people here who know the game as well as anyone in New Zealand and people here who know and understand the Irish scene infinitely better than the current coach. I would like to know to what extent the Irish coach has consulted with the four Irish provincial coaches on tactics and other matters. Are we supposed to bow and defer to the sight and sound of a New Zealand accent?

The Ireland manager, Pat Whelan, was a hooker and an extremely competitive and competent one. He is a former provincial coach and a man who has stated his policy in very precise terms on the criteria for national selection. How, I wonder, would he have felt if in his playing days he was ignored and a player such as Nesdale was selected ahead of him in the same circumstances. I know Whelan well enough and am sufficiently familiar with his playing career and his character to know the answer to that.

What other country would make such a selection? It seems as if we will never learn. Players have been selected for Ireland tours and Ireland teams without putting a boot on them in the cause of Irish rugby. Not one of them was worthy of those honours and I do not have to elaborate. It appears as if a New Zealand accent is currently deemed the passport most required in Irish rugby.

I have nothing but respect for men such as Dean Oswald, Sean McCahill and Kurt McQuilkin. These men have come into the Irish system and earned the honours they got. But we have had too many birds of passage, who have found Ireland a lucrative haven when they failed to get similar recognition in their own lands. I have nothing but contempt for some of the current happenings in Irish rugby and make no apologies to anyone for stating that.

In conclusion, on what basis is Mike Brewer currently coaching the Irish forwards? He was a great player and may well prove to be a great forward coach, but surely he has to prove his coaching qualities. We have one of the best forward coaches in the game anywhere in Willie Anderson. He is the man who should be coaching the Irish forwards. He has proved his worth and he proved it with Ireland. Equally we have people available in this country well qualified for positions for which they have been overlooked.

We can all learn from others in every aspect of life, but we do not have to be a servile nation, not in rugby or in any other facet of life.