Sexy play-offs would beef up Celtic League

On Rugby: Appearances, or to adopt a fitting phrase of our times, image, are everything. The perception out there is that the Celtic League is an inferior product to the English Premiership or the French top-14. That it is dragging its weary heels to a belated end, whereas fanfare and trumpets accompany its French and English counterparts to a more glorious conclusion.

To a degree, the perception would be true. The key to any end-of-season run-in is that interest is retained. As football has shown on countless occasions, the best means of ensuring this is through play-offs.

Both the Premiership and the French championship are guaranteed a grand climax thanks to their use of a play-off system. Why, even the much-maligned AIB League has embraced that concept. Dyed-in-the-wool traditionalists may argue otherwise, but this at least guarantees those leagues two weekends in the, em, sunshine (these things being relative).

In France, it is shaping up to be a final four of Biarritz, Toulouse, Stade Francais and Perpignan. That is a heavyweight top four, even if a top-heavy top-14 does mean a faintly ridiculous June 10th decider (and then France might be wondering why they won't win the World Cup on home soil?) in Stade de France in pursuit of the mystical Bouclier du Brennu.

Of course, that championship has the richest history and tradition of all, but even the French weren't hostages to tradition in embracing the concept of play-offs, and no one baulks about it now. A grand finale is seen as an appropriate and fitting occasion to round off the season.

There are still those who bridle that Sale have not been ordained champions in England, like previous teams to finish first before them, perhaps because the concept hasn't been in situ as long. These things take time to become accustomed to, for any lingering sense of injustice to fade away.

Yet it is the play-offs which generated so much interest and contributed to two crackers when London Irish beat Wasps 56-37 in that astonishing game last Sunday week, and again when Wasps went to Kingsholm with the quadruple-seeking champions' play-off place on the line and came through by 37-32.

Lamenting their concession of nine tries to "Irish" and four to Gloucester, Shaun Edwards, mastermind of Wasps' famed blitz defence, added: "There again, everyone in the Premiership has been scoring heavily in recent weeks.

"If it goes on like this, we'll need 40,000-seater stadiums to cope with the demand. Who'd watch football when they can see rugby as it's being played at the moment?"

Better weather, along with drier surfaces and footballs, have contributed to this, but so, too, more than anything, has been the race for the play-offs.

More than anyone, the team to light the touchpaper have been London Irish under Brian Smith. They are clearly the coming force, with plenty of skilful, ball-carrying forwards, a top-notch lineout, a quick-tempo game based on rapid-fire recycling, and oodles of pace out wide, with the canny Mike Catt pulling the strings.

Yet for much of the season, watching the Premiership has often been sleep-inducing, like watching two sets of lifters or boxers physically pummelling into each other with the ball an optional extra. Plenty of coaches and keen rugby fans, some of whom would once have counted themselves as devotees until late, could scarcely bring themselves to stay tuned to one of the Sky-covered Premiership games, much less go to the trouble of taping one.

Thanks to Setanta's coverage, we've also been introduced to regulation French club rugby, but if the truth be told many of those games have been just as soporific.

Whatever about away sides turning up in spirit as well as body most of the time, some days it would appear that referees wouldn't give so much as a penalty to the away side without leaving the engine running.

(Some of the stories from smaller, more localised club games would send a shiver up the spine.)

As last weekend's matches underlined, obtaining away wins in the Celtic League can be difficult too, and there is a groundswell of discontent among players and coaches about the league employing "home" touch judges.

Mindful, again, that image is everything, Setanta's budget constraints, certainly compared to Murdoch's millions over in Sky, limit its scope for making the Celtic League look sexy with pyrotechnics, graphics, funky studio, multiple camera angles, etc.

Yet purely as a rugby product, and allowing for more parochial interest, arguably the rugby product itself is every bit as good.

Whatever about Ulster's worthy win over Cardiff, admittedly Leinster's scratchy win away to Glasgow and the defeat for an under-strength Munster at the Ospreys may not have been the most telling examples of it. But a week before the European Cup semi-finals, Leinster and Munster's comeback wins over Llanelli and Edinburgh were as good as any regulation games you'd see in England or Wales, and Leinster's win over the Ospreys a week ago wasn't far behind.

That is far from the exception. Shane Byrne is not alone in believing that the Celtic League is every bit as intense physically as the English Premiership he now plies his trade in, and for much of the season the rugby has been every bit as inventive and competitive.

Most of all, perhaps, the Celtic League suffers by comparison to what is the holy grail for the Irish provinces that is the European Cup. It would help if a sponsor came on board, if the refereeing were better, if neutral linesmen were also employed, if the coverage were sexier (and one includes ourselves in that) and, perhaps, if there were a top-four play-off system.

Imagine the interest there would be now further down the table if there were a more meaningful clamour to obtain play-off places, with home advantage accruing to the top two in the semi-finals? Think back to last season and the Ospreys' solo march to the title, which meant the climax was something of a damp squib.

Granted, the league's apparently never-ending climax already would make it a suitable product for Duracel to sponsor, and a finale of sorts looks assured given the close-run race between Ulster and Leinster. But even then, they finish up in Edinburgh and Cardiff respectively, which will probably mean not too many of their supporters will be there to witness it.

And, image-wise, how will that look?