Another spanner in the works

What to do about Irish rugby? The debate intensifies and yet it's hard to find two people in complete agreement about the solution. Appearing on Radio One with Con Murphy and Tony Ward two days ago, the guts of an hour whizzed by and the debate reflected the current climate of the game - like a helicopter in a tailspin.

Where do you start and where do you finish? Questions from the public jumped and veered all over the place. Mostly, not surprisingly, they came from Limerick. That's where the passion is. Mostly, too, they were of a parochial nature. Why isn't Mick Galwey/Ger Earls/David Corkery in the Irish team? Why isn't Pat Whelan sacked? As if any one of them, even the latter, would be the panacea for all ills.

One question took the biscuit though: Where will professional rugby be in two years' time? Crikey. Haven't got a clue mate. That's the kernel of the problem. If we could look into a crystal ball and predict what rugby was going to be like in a couple of years - even European rugby - we might have a chance of gauging what the scenario will be like in Ireland.

Another spanner was thrown into the works last week. Ne'er a week goes without a new spanner. Sure enough, those bullying masters of brinkmanship, English Rugby Partnership (ERP) the association representing English clubs, were at it again, identifying the European Cup as their most potent stick to beat over the heads of their Celtic brethren by announcing their withdrawal from it.

On the one hand, you can take the threat at face value and so see it as the death knell of a Northern Hemisphere rival to the Super 12, and with it the death knell to the Irish provinces and Scottish districts - maybe even European rugby. On the other hand, it can be interpreted as yet more sabre-rattling in an attempt by the English clubs to obtain a seasonal itinerary and structure entirely to their liking.

Certainly, they have a few justifiable bones of contention. As has been pointed out here before, the European season is a mess and here the Five Nations and the European Rugby Cup (ERC) board are primarily to blame for having the European Cup spread out over five months, yet with a three-and-a-half month gap between the roundrobin stages and the international championship.

Vernon Pugh, chairman of the International Rugby Board and a director of ERC, has been making conciliatory noises, saying that this "little spat" can be resolved with some amendments to next season's fixture list. However, this cannot mean changing the make-up of the European Cup next season as the format was agreed, in principle, for a two-year period by all board members, including the ERP representative Bill Beaumont. Whether we like it or not, though, the English clubs also have a case vis-a-vis their representation in the European Cup. It doesn't seem equitable that they have four clubs, when the Irish and Scots have three each and the Italians two. Yet, it would be remiss not to remind them that in eight English v Irish European ties this season, the Irish provinces won four. In all their utterings, it seems that ERP would like to be rid of everyone else bar the French. Missionaries on their behalf have been to France and held talks over an Anglo-French Cup. Quite how such a one-dimensional tournament would hold greater public appeal than a European Cup is a moot point. So it must be tempting for the ERC board to hold their nerve and call the ERP's bluff, for it's hard to see ERP's threat coming to pass. Would a parochial professional club circus garnished by an Anglo-French Cup be any more viable than the European Cup? Money may not, then, be the main motive. More likely, the European Cup is a bargaining tool for power over the English game. But even here, the English clubs can only go so far with an Anglo-French Cup, as a clause in the English RFU's contract with Sky stipulates that the television satellite company must secure the Union's approval for covering a cross-border competition. Nice one, Clive Brittle. No Sky, no big bucks.

It seems that the English clubs are prepared to cut their own throats - and everybody else's in European rugby at the same time. The inherent problem is that the needs of English, French and, to a degree, Welsh rugby - where there is a broad base of clubs - conflict with those of Irish and Scottish rugby.

It's bad enough that the structures within the five nations are so conflicting, worse still that the English clubs are effectively financing professionalism more than the national unions - the IRFU included. This is more payback time for the IRFU's failure two year's ago to provide the professional set-up which might have kept our players at home.

Ultimtely, something seismic may have to happen - like an English club circus working independently from the mainstream European game, a la Kerry Packer's cricket circus, or the English club game going bust.

But in a sense, it doesn't matter to Irish rugby. Whether or not the European Cup survives in its existing state, something of it's kin - an alternative pan-European tournament or Celtic Cup - will come into place. Perish the thought, but elite Irish provinces or super clubs could even compete in an English or British premiership. There will be alternatives out there.

Whether or not the English clubs go their own self-interested way, the IRFU has to set up a structure whereby there is an elite pool of professional squads to which, theoretically, every Irish player can aspire.

Clearly, there is a growing lobby within the conservative IRFU executive that is thinking this way. Granted, this may be a club v province battle in another name. So much of Irish rugby revolves around politics. But without either hat to wear, and given a choice between the existing clubs/the AIB League, or the provinces, I'd still side with the latter. Even a trimmed-down first division of eight wouldn't solve the problems. Good players will still be lured to second division clubs, or miss the net altogether. Geographically, it could be even more lopsided than it is now. My fear about the provinces is that they'd lack financial autonomy and leave the clubs isolated. The clubs know their way around and need some involvement. Ideally, then, five to eight super clubs in which the existing clubs, and maybe even the provinces, have a stake, would ultimately become self-financing. That may be utopian, however, the argument that we shouldn't emulate New Zealand on the grounds that they have 250,000 players and we've only 20,000 doesn't hold water. If they can trim down their elite to five super clubs, and eight first-division provinces, then all the more reason for us to do something similar.