Cullen to leave over contract confusion

In what is something of an embarrassment for the IRFU, Justin Cullen, the 28-year-old former Otago lock and holder of an Irish passport, has decided to reject what he saw as an unnecessarily delayed contract offer to play with Connacht and will leave Ireland.

The final straw was, apparently, a clerical error which resulted in him being sent a part-time contract rather than a full-time contract this week. However, it was more an accumulation of events since Cullen first arrived here in early July during which the IRFU clearly wanted him to join Buccaneers rather than Galwegians.

Billy Lavery, the chairman of the IRFU committee declined to say whether the Union or key IRFU officials expressed a preference for the player to join Buccaneers. "That issue is totally irrelevant to the circumstances that obtain," said Lavery.

Nor would he confirm that the Union had indicated it would not support Connacht's application for a part-time contract on the basis that he was joining Galwegians. However, a Union spokesperson last night conceded that this was their stance.

"The situation as far as the IRFU are concerned is that the player in question came in on the recommendation of Glenn Ross (the Connacht director of rugby) as a replacement for Mark McConnell in Buccaneers. When events took a different route, (i.e. Galwegians) the Union weren't going to facilitate that."

However, it does not fall under Ross' ambit to sign players for clubs, merely for Connacht. Furthermore, Cullen cannot be classified as a direct replacement for McConnell because, unlike McConnell, he is not a registered overseas player.

Originally, Glenn Ross had identified Cullen as a replacement for the injured McConnell in June. But, before the player arrived on Saturday July 4th in Galway, it was already known that he was an Irish passport holder (his mother hails from Monaghan).

Cullen duly met with representatives of both Buccaneers and Galwegians at 12.00 and 1pm that day on the premise that he was a non-overseas player.

Given the offer of a part-time contract with Galwegians and a full-time contract with Buccaneers, he chose the former. However, IRFU officials indicated that it was against Union policy for a contracted player to be a coach of a club side, although this supposed policy has never been substantiated with documentation.

Even then, Galwegians were still prepared to honour their commitment to Cullen without imposing a responsibility on him to coach.

Subsequently, when Connacht learned that Simon Allnutt would still be classified as an overseas player in provincial terms for another year, it meant Connacht could not register McConnell's subsequent replacement, another Kiwi, Martyn Steffert. On foot of that, however, Buccaneers signed Steffert as their registered overseas player, thereby replacing McConnell.

Cullen, it seems, was the victim of off-the-pitch, political manoeuvrings in his choice of club. Buccaneers formally expressed their objections to Cullen joining Galwegians on July 16th, citing a "lack of transparency surrounding the contracting of Connacht players last season" and that they had "once again been unfairly treated."

In the heel of the hunt, a disillusioned Irish passport holder, with over 100 first-class games behind him in New Zealand, has walked away from Irish rugby.