Fears for England game as IRFU seeks clarification

Representatives of the IRFU will meet with officials from the Department of Agriculture on Monday morning to clarify the situation regarding the upcoming rugby schedules, with the Ireland-England game in three weeks' time possibly becoming another casualty as early as next week.

In the interim, the Union yesterday confirmed that all matches, without exception, including schools and all underage rugby have been postponed.

The priority for the Union now is the prognosis for the Ireland-England game at Lansdowne Road on Sunday March 24th, for Union sources confirm that ideally they would like a decision made on that game by the end of next week.

However, there must be little hope of that game going ahead, for even if the foot-and-mouth outbreak is contained in Ireland in the interim, that will only intensify the desire to prevent the disease spreading from England.

Both in this, and in their contribution to the Six Nations Committee emergency meeting in London today which will discuss contingency plans for further cancellations of championship games, the IRFU will prioritise the international matches. To put them in context, it costs the IRFU in the region of £9.5 million annually to run the professional game and a home Six Nations' championship game is worth an estimated £3.5 million to the Union.

"Internationals are the IRFU's financial lifeblood," admitted one IRFU source, "so viewed in that light everything else is secondary." Hence, if any competitions remain incomplete by the season's end, the AIL looks at far greater risk than Ireland's remaining Six Nations games, though the latter could conceivably be moved to next season.

The Six Nations chairman, Allan Hosie, is already on record as stating that international rugby is a breadwinner for many unions and presumably the other unions represented in London tomorrow will take a similar view, in which case contingency plans for the rescheduling of championship games could see domestic club leagues and even the Heineken Cup elbowed aside, and/or dates being set aside for next autumn.

However, a potentially huge can of worms here is the additional rift such fixture rescheduling might cause in England especially, where the latest collapse of an all-embracing accord between Twickenham and the English club owners resulted in the owners threatening a breakaway. Nor will the Welsh and French clubs take an understanding view if the Six Nations Committee decree that end-of-season domestic league campaigns be nudged aside.

Most likely nothing too concrete can come out of today's Six Nations meeting. Similarly no contingency plans can be made for the AIL or, say, the various schools' cup competitions, the semi-finals for which are likely to be put back from next week with their traditional slot on St Patrick's Day two weeks' hence also in jeopardy. As another IRFU official put it, "everything is up in the air so you can't plan for anything at this stage." Looking ahead, the only degree of certainty about the forthcoming rugby schedule is that the Lions tour will go ahead. The Australian Rugby Union yesterday declared that this summer's tour will not be at risk because of the foot-and-mouth outbreak after it had received assurances from the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service (AQIS) that no consideration has been given to prohibiting anyone from entering the country.

In yesterday's paper we reported that Garryowen had successfully appealed against their rescheduled game with Terenure this Saturday going ahead before all fixtures were called off anyhow. In fact it was Old Crescent who had successfully sought a cancellation of their re-arranged game with Clontarf as several of their squad had booked a recreational break in Scotland.