Strong club game is vital for player progression

On Rugby: Go through the Munster team which will carry the hopes of a nation, and not just the Munster nation, this Saturday in Cardiff, and the vast majority plied their trade in their formative years within the club game.

Indeed, it was a vital part of their learning curve, imbuing them with a winning mentality and several of the key players, from Anthony Foley to Jerry Flannery, have AIB league winners' medals to show for it.

In fact, it wouldn't be stretching things remotely to say the success of the Munster clubs backboned the Munster rejuvenation and in turn the Irish rejuvenation circa 2000 and subsequently.

Last Saturday, Shannon were churning over the latest conveyor belt of likely lads, most notably the 20-year-old hooker Seán Cronin. Fast, strong, skilful, Cronin really looks like one for the future.

Shannon and Clontarf have been two of the most productive clubs in producing players for the provinces, and dutifully make it a key plank of their playing policy to better players individually and help them progress up the Irish pyramid while in the process improving their own performances and standings.

As a breeding ground, the AIL may not be as intense or have the quality of yore, but it is still a feeder and for its own long-term health and self-respect, has to remain so.

Last season, provincial A matches were introduced to help the provincial coaches streamline what might be called second-string players, in the process giving under-used, contracted players as well as aspiring club players, some game time.

As it transpired, Leinster played 10 A games this season and the proposal is for the same or even more next season. This obviously has a detrimental effect on the club game. Never mind the inevitable drain on the clubs from yet more player call-ups, even if most of them were on non-AIL weekends, it is a clear statement that the A games are replacing the club game as the third tier on the Irish pyramid.

"I admit I'm probably biased," conceded Mick Galwey after Shannon's latest AIL coronation on Saturday, "but from my experience there simply has to be a strong club game and a strong AIL from which players can progress to the provinces. You go through the Munster team which will be playing on Saturday and nearly all of them would have played a fair amount of AIL rugby.

"Many of them learnt the game at their clubs and, you think of someone like Paul O'Connell at Young Munster, were able to play a good standard of rugby while he was knocking on Munster's door.

"A games . . . can't replace the passion of playing with your friends and team-mates at club level, in many cases guys you've grown up with or even shared a house with . . . I think we should have more investment in the club game, with more contracted players being made available to their clubs, and less for A matches. Looking ahead, that is far better for the future of the game in Ireland."

The clubs are already sucking the hind tit of the provinces. Coaches generally don't know what players are available to them, and therefore cannot finalise their teams, until, in some cases, the mornings of matches.

One cannot blame the provincial coaches/directors of rugby for wanting more of these games. Anybody in their shoes would probably want it. But this short-term solution, of sorts, for the provinces, cannot be good in the long-term for the clubs or, by extension, the Irish game.

It is simply devastating for the club game, for the clear insinuation and after-effect of this move is to drive a bigger wedge between the club game and the province, effectively reducing the AIL to a fully amateur game, which is what many in the club game believe the IRFU are covertly endeavouring to do.

That it could be approved by the branches shows also how out of touch they appear to be with the needs of the club game, which is alarming given so many of them supposedly represent the clubs and the branches were going to be charged with running the feeder leagues under the IRFU's flawed and abandoned master plan for the AIL.

The move toward more A games sends a message to players - whether contracted, semi-contracted or non-contracted - that their performances in the AIL don't really count for much, that performances at A level would be imperative. It also flies in the face of the union's stated objective in its strategic plan.

However, whatever about reduced crowds at AIL matches, even the proverbial two men and a dog wouldn't identify with provincial A sides. Nor do the provinces introduce thousands of underage kids to the game, develop them through their underage ranks and, in some cases, help them become fully fledged professionals with their provinces. Take that away from them, and what are they to aspire to?

Sure the provinces can readily identify the Luke Fitzgeralds and Jonathon Sextons of the schools game and bring them straight into their academy or professional squads. But the clubs still know their way around their locale, the junior scene and the club scene better than the provinces. They also have decades of tradition, with footholds in communities.

For sure there has been a worrying drain of non frontline provincial players to English clubs, the recent cases of Eoin Reddan and then Frank Murphy being prime cases in point. But a far more preferable option would be for the AIL to be enhanced, for provinces to make under-used provincial players more readily available to the clubs. That clearly isn't happening, and an expansion in the number of A games would further reduce their appearances at club level.

It might help if there was a push toward a higher quality first division, of perhaps 10 or no more than 12 clubs. As has been said here before, this could come with a 12-team second division and a third division divided into two groups of 12. We are moving into the territory of turkeys voting for Christmas but it remains the best solution.