Time for root and Branch reform

Irish rugby should be hopping excitedly this week, though you sense it can barely stifle a collective yawn. After all, lest we forget, the European Cup kicks off this weekend and an Irish team are proud holders of the trophy. Yet the prevailing mood of depression, postWorld Cup, has probably never been so acute.

Virtually every rugby person you bump into has the same resigned air. Much more seriously, a host of enlightened people and former internationals are just walking away from the game. One noted Irish forward of the 1980s I bumped into recently said he barely goes to all the Lansdowne Road internationals any more, and that's the extent of his involvement.

In the immediate aftermath of the defeat to Argentina in Lens, this former international maintained that "Gatland is a good coach, but the system isn't producing the players." He wasn't sure if it ever really had, but now reckons that the game is "dying" in Ireland. For this he blamed the IRFU and their inability to promote the game outside its traditionally small and mostly elitist schools' base - Limerick excepted - and most of all their inability to develop indigenous coaching.

Similar sentiments are expressed by other disgruntled and even angry former internationals. The way they see it, this is all just chickens coming home to roost. Rightly or wrongly, these former players have lost all faith in the IRFU. Meanwhile, clubs are struggling to fill their junior teams like never before. One Dublin 4 club has been reduced to playing just three teams this season.

Of course, in all of this, there is a danger that we can over-react to the events of Lens and the general fall-out from the World Cup. That play-off against Argentina could have swung Ireland's way on one or two refereeing decisions and things would be viewed a good deal differently now.

However, no less than the 1993 and '94 wins over England, that might only have masked some fundamental flaws. The theory goes that Irish rugby, along with other countries, faced something of a crossroads when the game went professional three seasons ago. If anything though, the crossroads has been reached now.

In fairness to the IRFU, despite being politically and morally opposed to the advent of professionalism, they gradually responded to the challenge by throwing money at the top end of the structure. International players have been brought home, the four provinces have been professionalised and the interpros were upgraded and improved by the Super 12 points scoring system.

In terms of preparing an international team for a tournament, this Irish squad was given every financial and logistical facility. Ultimately though, the ensuing performance probably only serves to highlight how flawed the underlying structures are.

It's time for a revolution, from root to Branch (literally so there). Reality has generally started to dawn on the inherent flaws of schools rugby, and the monsters that are the schools cups, with their elitist, self-perpetuating, money-spinning (there's the rub), win-at-all-costs makeup. Sure, it prepares a chosen few for competitive rugby at underage level, but it is not conducive to producing rounded, skilful players for the adult game. There is a telling statistic from the Irish under-21s in last summer's FIRA tournament in Argentina: of 30-something Irish scrums in the competition, the backs got the ball only three times.

In Australia, for example, it's significant to note that there is no knockout competition among the major schools (and their rugby schools are even higher fee-paying, upper middle-class schools with vastly superior facilities).

Furthermore, the schools' season is relatively short - about four months. Most of all though, no matter how poor the quality of the team, it will always attempt to adopt a 15-man running game as opposed to a 10-man game. Kicking to touch is virtually outlawed, and as I've said here before, in French schools' rugby kicking from outside the 22 is banned.

COMPARISONS with Australia are especially valid, where rugby union is a poor relation to two other team games and accordingly struggles for numbers. In reality, the Australian state squads are selected from just 14 senior clubs in Sydney, eight in Brisbane and four in Canberra.

Additionally, scarcely half these clubs act as feeders to the states, so the player base for representative rugby is similar to here.

But there they accept this inherent difficulty, and concentrate on quality rather than quantity. They do this thanks in the main to a network of spies, who seek to identify young players capable of responding to skills coaching. The players are then invited to one of the state summer programmes, which teaches basic skills in evening sessions. These annual summer camps give way to more comprehensive programmes in the under-19 and under-21 structures, incorporating two to three-week camps where they are prepared by professional coaches and skills' trainers.

All the while, there is an emphasis on weeding out those who will not develop to the highest standards and, as with all the best sporting academies, there is a ruthless, almost scientific approach. In Australia therefore, the elite is based on ability, whereas in Ireland it's based more on what school you go to.

Further up the structure here, just below international level, there would still remain the gaping Super 12 type void which the European Cup only partially fills, and this is a European problem as much as an Irish one. But were a three-month, representative European circuit to happen, that would only heighten the dilemma of the clubs, who are fast being cast adrift with little to offer for themselves.

A personal preference, mooted here a couple of years ago, would be for the clubs to be equal shareholders in a provincial-type set-up. As a bona fide "feeder", suitably rewarded, this would give them a lifeline and an input into "super clubs", who would then have more autonomy than the provinces currently have.

It's probably too much to ask, no less than a revolution itself.