Contenders for two of the biggest jobs in higher education – President of DCU and Provost of TCD – are already jockeying for position, writes GERRY THORNLEY.
THESE ARE the best of days really, and there’s still plenty to play for – an all-Ireland Heineken Cup semi-final at Croke Park which will constitute the biggest “club” game ever, the ensuing presence of one Irish team in the final, Munster set fare to win the Magners League and then a record representation on a Lions’ squad captained by Paul O’Connell. We may as well enjoy it because you’d wonder if Irish rugby will ever have a better season.
Clearly there is much that is good about Irish rugby at the moment. While these things are cyclical, success tends to bring success and this season’s achievements ought to ensure relatively good times for a while yet.
If nothing else there must be thousands more kids helping to fill club pitches the length and breadth of the country on Sunday mornings, which would make you think if the provinces are to broaden their net for quality reinforcements they need to look more and more beyond the relatively small base of their elite schools.
The fine-tuning of talented young players at provincial level, via academies and development contracts, is clearly the best way of polishing the gems. Nevertheless, as influential a starting block, and perhaps the most influential, was the club game. The winning culture developed at Shannon and elsewhere at the Munster clubs in the All-Ireland League in the 1990s was the foundation upon which Munster and Ireland have enjoyed such success in the noughties.
Marcus Horan, Jerry Flannery, John Hayes, Mick Galwey, Anthony Foley, Alan Quinlan and David Wallace, among others, all won AIB League winners medals before Heineken Cups, Triple Crowns or a Grand Slam. Others, such as Donncha O’Callaghan, Ronan O’Gara, O’Connell and Denis Leamy cut their teeth in the club game. It was the clubs that discovered and nurtured the likes of Hayes, Quinlan, Trevor Brennan and Shane Horgan and, the thing is, there’s obviously so much more untapped potential from where they came from. Outside of Munster, Stephen Ferris says it was the making of him.
Although the connection between province and club is seemingly greater in Munster, the provinces have been successful in increasing the number of A games in recent years. On average, only 14 contracted players appear for their clubs per weekend in the AIL. Clearly this is less than before and standards have gone down accordingly, with Brian Walsh freely admitting his Constitution side would not have topped the league five or so years ago with this season’s level of performance.
With academy and development-contracted players, there are roughly 160 players in the provincial set-ups. With almost 90 involved in an average European or Magners League weekend, even allowing for injuries or knocks, wouldn’t it be better for the game in general, and the club game specifically, if the provinces made a greater effort to make them available to the clubs? The IRFU maintain the advent of a league for the provincial A sides which they are looking into, along with Premiership sides from Wales and non-Premiership club sides in England, will actually see fewer provincial A games. The games will be played on non AIL League weekends, so there will be no clashes with league fixtures or the knockout stage of the AIB Cup. It is basically putting a structure on the A fixtures.
That will be a relief for the clubs, for whom it is hard to find one leading figure, such as former internationals who have been involved in the game for decades, who does not belief this can only damage the club game further and could even sound its final death knell. But isn’t it a terrible pity Irish rugby is considering entering provincial A sides with little or no history or identity, whereas the Welsh and English are entering comparatively vibrant clubs? One can understand why the IRFU have come up with a new formula for the AIL League, in part to concentrate the quality more at the top, and the clubs stand indicted for their failure over many years to agree on a formula among themselves.
Yet, as feared, next season’s Division One A, or “top eight” as it is bound to be known, will effectively become a quasi Munster/Leinster Senior League. Of the 56 games, 20 will be Munster derbies, 50 will involve Munster sides, and the other six will be Leinster derbies. Eh, “All-Ireland’ League”? A 10 or 12-club Premier Division, playing each other home and away, whether ring-fencing one or two sides from each province or not, always looked a better formula, perhaps with a 12-team Division Two format and two regionalised divisions at the third tier, has always looked a better formula.
The recent ticket fiasco for next Saturday’s semi-final further highlights the disconnection between the clubs and province in Leinster, whereas in Munster the clubs still enjoy a better link and better supply of tickets. Munster clubs give over three times as many tickets to their clubs as Leinster do. Perhaps understandably, Leinster panicked for fear of a repeat of the 2006 semi-final when the Red Army invaded Lansdowne Road. But how to avoid it? There are, most likely, more Munster supporters based in Dublin than there are in Limerick, and almost as many based in Leinster clubs as there are in Limerick clubs.
The decision to issue diktats to the clubs warning of all sorts of retribution if any of their members were seen to wear red next Saturday was ill-advised and embarrassing. It also seemed as if they rushed into the selling war a bit too swiftly, for it wasn’t as if they were going to have any trouble selling their allocation of 30,150. The net result has been the clubs were left short-changed, and generally given 10 per cent of their Test-match allocation.
Rewarding the Leinster Supporters Association and season-ticket holders was all well and good, but there’s something clearly wrong when a club such as Blackrock, who normally receive 450-odd for a Test match at Croke Park, were allocated 52 stand tickets, 14 terrace tickets and four schoolboy tickets. This, for a club that has nearly 400 boys playing underage rugby on Sunday mornings.
The rest are in the same boat. How can the clubs in Leinster satisfy the demand to their volunteer base, players or sponsors? Once again then, the clubs have been disconnected from their province.
gthornley@irishtimes.com
