Clontarf can be an inspiration to others

On Rugby: Much like junk food and junk movies, play-offs are seemingly a necessary evil in modern-day sport, writes Gerry Thornley.

Besides, the AIB league and the Clontarf club itself would never have been held up in such a positive light were it not for last Saturday's denouement and while losing will forever remain the bitterest defeat those Clontarf players will ever likely experience at club level, there will still have been much to cherish from their season and even from last Saturday.

There was the emotional Castle Avenue send off from about 400 supporters, the atmosphere on the day, the game itself, and perhaps most of all the moving reception afforded the squad by 500 or more supporters on returning to the club on Saturday evening.

In the wider context, as a relatively unfashionable third division club seven seasons ago, Clontarf are a barometer of the changing face of club rugby in Ireland, and can act as an inspiration to others. True, not every club can reach a final, but there are plenty of upwardly mobile clubs, and the key is they are are virtually all community or parish-based clubs.

The notion of a 10,000-plus crowd for a Leinster-Ulster AIL match would have been sneered at in the last few years. Of course, time was when such crowds were commonplace on an annual basis, albeit invariably in Munster. But that created a false dawn. In far more difficult times, club rugby has carved an eminently respectable niche for itself now.

As the concept of play-offs is here to say, they may as well be embraced - warts and all. In fact, they should be broadened. Next season, because only one team will be promoted from Division Two, the top four could go into a play-off with promotion also at stake.

Thereafter, the top team could gain automatic promotion, and then the next three, along with, say, the second-from bottom in the first division, would enter play-offs with promotion/relegation at stake. Whatever formula is agreed upon, expanding the play-offs to incorporate something tangible like promotion would generate interest further down the table nearing the end of the season as well as giving the second and third division play-offs more bite. And, furthermore, why not have all three divisional play-off finals held on the same day - making it a true grand finale to the club season?

Once a 14-team first division has been established, with 17 in both the second and third divisions, at the end of next season, the future structure of the league is again up for debate - it was ever thus. Eddie Wigglesworth, the IRFU's Director of Rugby, maintains that this will be a broad-ranging and jointly conducted process between the Union and the clubs.

No doubt, out of self-interest, some of the supposed leading first division clubs (though this year's table shows that's becoming a greyer area with each passing year) will argue for a further reduction in the top flight, to say 10 or 12, and perhaps close it off altogether with no promotion and relegation.

When you think back to how the club map looked when the AIL first started out it really was something of a closed shop.

But the horse has bolted. Promotion from the junior ranks and the greater success of newer, parish or community based clubs has redrawn the map. Clubs like Barnhall, Carlow and Connemara amongst others, where rugby scarcely existed, are now flourishing. In terms of reaching into previously uncharted territory, the club game has never been more vibrant.

In the overall scheme of things the need for a shrunken, more elitist AIL first division has actually diminished with the onset of a 22-game Celtic League. All it would serve to do is turn off the majority of clubs. Promotion and relegation, providing a thread from the bottom up to the very top, is the lifeblood of any vibrant league.

Contrary to popular perception, the standard of rugby in the first division has not declined in line with the diminishing crowds. Think back a decade or so and very few teams - Blackrock, St Mary's, Cork Con and maybe the colleges - were playing 15-man rugby. Now most teams do.

Granted, it's going to get tougher for them, not so much because next season is a World Cup season, more because of last week's confirmation that an expanded Celtic League has arrived.

It was inevitable. Some clubs, such as Shannon and Clontarf, had long since started adapting to the changing climate. The latter's coach, Phil Werahiko, is openly and actively agitating for his players to be contracted. Following the examples of Warren O'Kelly and Ben Gissing, Bernard Jackman has apparently been offered deals by Leinster and Connacht, and talented outhalf cum full back Dave Hewitt by Connacht, while it surely can't be long before a strong-running, dynamic centre like James Downey is offered some avenue into the professional game.

For sure this is a double-edged sword. With a Celtic League, the drain on full-timers and part-timers alike will never be greater. But Werahiko's premise is that the players must be ambitious, and must train professionally before becoming professional. And while each success story might be seen to create a void, only partially offset by some modest recompense from the IRFU, it is also a shining example of the club's ambitions as well as an inducement for prospective players.

Again, contrary to talk around the clubs, the IRFU will not be imposing any limits on contracted players playing for club sides. The Celtic League will take care of that in it's own right. Nor, according to Wigglesworth, had they or have they any intention of decreeing that contracted players can only play for first division clubs, which is a relief, as such a decree would be daft, elitist, unfair and possibly illegal. Just another of those bar room myths apparently.