The Irish system is in working order

The system works. Hallelujah, the system works. Proof, were it needed, has been served up by the presence of another Irish province in the European Cup for the second year running.

True, the balancing act between club and province became difficult in the last couple of weeks, and while the Munster clubs suffered more, even the province won last Saturday in spite of it as much as because of it.

The kernel of the recent problems has been the deferred, end-of-season date for the European final at the insistence of the English clubs such as Northampton's influential Keith Barwell. Now the ball is on the other foot, for it will be Northampton who have to play a domestic Cup final and then three games in eight days as a prelude to the week of the Heineken decider.

Maybe now they'll see sense too, in which case the recent tug-of-war here will not be repeated. Either way the balancing act in Irish rugby must be maintained. The Munster and Irish successes are a godsend which can only help the game here into becoming more popular than ever. And in that scenario it's even more imperative that young supporters and would-be players see the best internationals at club level - at least occasionally.

Nor does this writer tally with a viewpoint that this is the worst AIL in its 10-year existence. In fact, some of the rugby has been among the AIL's best, such as aspects of the 10-try feast between Garryowen and Ballymena two Saturdays ago. "The Irish system is perfect - it shouldn't be tampered with," maintained Andre Bester after that game, and a former member of Ulster's all-conquering side of the 80s recently admitted to me that some of the rugby in this season's first division was vastly superior to anything Ulster produced then.

Of course, the difficulties of the recent balancing act here made the achievement of Declan Kidney and the entire back-up staff, as well as the players, even more commendable. And possibly the most significant aspect of Munster's win over Toulouse was that they appeared the fitter team. Compared to not so long ago, and given the conditions, that is little short of incredible.

Afterwards, Declan Kidney noted that Toulouse had contested the first final five years ago, and had had a jump start even before professionalism came in over a year later. For sure, Ulster had already put one over Toulouse last season and were thus first to the European winning post, and so the first shots of the revolution had taken place, but that had been at Ravenhill on a wet December night.

Certainly Munster's comparative fitness levels on Saturday were staggering compared to, say, their capitulation away to Toulouse three years ago when the French side ran in seven second-half tries for a 60-19 win. Nothing pretty exceptional about that either. That was a dog-eared script those days. "Perhaps today we caught up," ventured Kidney on Saturday. There are countless other factors too, first and foremost Munster's unique collection of players and coaching staff. There's also the mental confidence that has come from their own run and an extraordinary sequence of wins by Irish sides over French outfits in the last two years. Plus de mystique!

But results, skill levels, mental strength and fitness levels are also, to a degree, the spin-offs of the system. You have to speculate to accumulate and the additional cost of running Munster due to their bi-location, with fitness advisers, doctors and so forth in both Cork and Limerick, to the tune of about £1.4 million, is fair enough. The Limerick-based players rave about Fergal Coleman, their fitness adviser brought on board this season, and so - with Kidney and the Brains Trust's exceptional motivational skills - what was once seen as a problem is now a virtue.

Munster usually had the biggest hearts, the greater winning mentality, and the ability to rise to a one-off occasion, and now seem the biggest beneficiaries of professionalism. Despite being almost in their mid-30s, Mick Galwey and Peter Clohessy have probably never been fitter, and certainly never more professional.

We can only wonder what they and perhaps even the gifted and mercurial Eddie Halvey, Anthony Foley and the rest might have achieved before. To which Galwey retorts "then we probably would have retired three years ago." In any event, Munster have now truly reaped the benefits, and so in turn have Ireland, with Limerick's status as the heartbeat of the game given its greatest substance ever.

Fitness levels have improved across the board of course, and with the highly rated Liam Hennessy now employed as overseer of the whole show, what was once Irish rugby's Achilles heel is now a strength. All of which confirms an impression that the professionals are increasingly being allowed to run the show by the committee in 62 Lansdowne Road.

Yet in the heel of the hunt, the IRFU blazers still hold on to the reins of power and make the big decisions. There appears to have been little consultation with Warren Gatland, Eddie O'Sullivan and either the outgoing manager Donal Lenihan or the incoming Brian O'Brien about player contracts despite the management's expressed concerns about the issue last summer.

Pretty soon, they'll probably make an announcement regarding the highly successful retention of the vast majority of the home-based players, which is fair enough if they've pulled it off. But if so, then Ireland and Munster's upturns this season have helped the union's negotiations with players such as Brian O'Driscoll, Ronan O'Gara, Peter Stringer, Shane Horgan, Jeremy Staunton, Mike Mullins, Eric Miller and a host of others who had been left contractually open to a variety of offers from English and French clubs.

In one other instance too, the committee men made a critically and potentially crippling decision regarding one quarter of its provincial base when deciding to shave about £200,000 off Connacht's annual £900,000 bill and reduce its full-time playing staff to a paltry 16. Given Ireland's success realised an unprojected £5 million windfall for the Italian game, and Munster's run has earned another sum close to that, it was a knee-jerk, reprehensible decision, lacking any sense of justice or longterm objectivity, and should be rescinded immediately.