Three seasons ago, Connacht - little 'oul Connacht - went to Franklins Gardens to take on Northampton. Lest we forget, they beat Ian McGeechan's full-strength side fair and square. They broke new ground by becoming the first Irish province to win on English soil in European competition. It was arguably better than any other Irish performance in the fledgling European competitions at that juncture. As Munster face up to Northampton in the European Cup final, Connacht's achievement is worth bearing in mind.

In beating Northampton they became the first Irish team to reach the quarter-finals of a European competition in which all Six Nations entered. That season they would provide Conor McGuinness and Eric Elwood to the full Irish cause, while Pat Duignan would follow later. That season, as the other provincial coaches have admitted, Connacht gave inspiration to all. They made the mental breakthrough in many ways. Three days after Connacht's preceding win at home to Northampton, Leinster would cite that 48-18 victory as part-inspiration in their win over Leicester.

Two seasons on, Connacht's fortunes have changed. Record scores tumbled onto each other as they were whitewashed in the interpros. They failed to progress beyond a comparatively undistinguished group in the European Shield. They failed to provide one member of Ireland's Six Nations teams or the forthcoming 28-man squad to the Americas. So the IRFU, in their wisdom, decreed that the Connacht professional enterprise should be cut by about £900,000 to about £700,000. This is not, they maintain, an arbitrary decision, more one made after deep soul-searching.

As outlined by the IRFU's chief executive Philip Browne, with sincerity, and citing all the relevant documented data, the Union have their reasons. Essentially they're about financial outgoings equating to playing incomings. For all their perceived wealth - something in the region of £17 million to £20 million in the bank, and at least five times that if the Government/JP McManus/Taxpayers' Stadium ever comes to fruition through their astute property investments - the Union understandably cannot be viewed as a bottomless pit.

Professional rugby is a business and in making a business decision the Union totted up their figures. Despite an equitable output to all four provinces (Munster's bi-location would mean they would cost more) influential figures in the IRFU noted that there were only 19 clubs in Connacht as compared to 69 in Leinster, 61 in Munster and 62 in Ulster. This equates to 49 adult teams in Connacht compared to 241 in Leinster, 141 in Munster, and 228 in Ulster. The Union, understandably, take the view that the provinces are primarily the last piece of the developmental jigsaw underneath the Irish test and A teams.

In this and the aforementioned playing numbers, they decided that the figures didn't add up and so made, roughly, a £200,000 deduction in the Connacht professional system, reducing their full-time numbers to 16. The decision was leaked. It was never formally announced. No-one stood up and said they decided it. It was a committee decision.

The Union add that their expenditure for provincial, regional and youth development officers is the same in each province, and will continue to be so in recognition of Connacht's progress in broadening the schools' base. (In point of fact, Connacht have made more progress in this regard than any other province over the last few years.)

It's a hell of an argument, and yet it still sucks.

Heaven help the other provinces if some of the same principles were applied to them at equally short notice. Ulster achieved zero points in Europe this season and contributed just three players to Ireland's 28-man squad for the tour of the Americas. Leinster are arguably the most persistent and biggest underachievers of all, on and off the pitch. Their marketing of games last season was poorer than the year before, and amid the constantly changing kick-off times the nadir was the decision to start the Stade Francais game at 5.30 p.m. on the Friday before Christmas (no more than 2,000 attended). But you have to wonder if some of the same criteria would ever be applied to the other provinces, because Connacht don't have their political clout. And how much of this might be motivated by suspicions over the relatively high number of contracted players at Galwegians and Buccaneers?

You could well argue that Connacht's unrealised potential in playing numbers demands that they receive the biggest investment. That has some merit. Instead, when they were more pro-active than any province in signing second-generation Irish players from abroad, the IRFU messed them around with Justin Cullen and re-routed Mike Mullins to Munster.

Connacht could also become a useful breeding ground for on-loan players from other provinces, such as Paul O'Connell, Aidan McCullan, Paul Neville, Jonathan Davis and a host of others. A virtue could be made of their cosmopolitan make-up, as was the case when the ACT Brumbies started up.

Already Willie Anderson and John Hall have rejected overtures regarding the Connacht coaching job. Let's get real for a second here. With a salary of less than £50,000, merely one to three years of job security, and the poorest working base - in terms of financial and playing resources - in a four-way contest, who'd take it?

As well as giving them an uneven playing field in the interpros, the IRFU will also be diminishing Connacht's performance levels in Europe. These cuts simply have to do that. It's also worth noting that Connacht offered to remain in the Shield for five years, regardless of their final interpro standings, if they were given financial parity, and still the Union went ahead with their cost-cutting.

In doing so the Union have taken a significant step toward emulating the Scottish, two-team, Super Districts' system. That was a lamentable, flawed and knee-jerk step. This too seems a hastily reactive decision, of dubious principle, in which the Union have partially abrogated their responsibilities to the game in all 32 counties. Why not at least maintain parity for another three seasons and see what happens?