Future as certain as bounce of a rugby ball

Forecasting when the next kick-off will be, much less the outcome at full-time, is a trick in itself right now amid the current state of flux. Nonetheless, another blank week domestically with a resumption the week after next looks the best-case scenario, while further afield the Six Nations committee have pencilled in dates in May as an alternative finale for the endangered championship.

At a meeting in London yesterday, the Six Nations committee drew up contingency plans in the event of the foot-and-mouth epidemic causing further disruption to the championship, with the Ireland-England game in three weeks looking particularly vulnerable.

"A revised date for the Wales v Ireland match will be confirmed in due course, but it has been provisionally rescheduled for April 29th," according to a Six Nations statement, which confirmed that today's Italy-France and England-Scotland games will go ahead.

It is believed the Irish representatives at the London meeting, Syd Millar and Billy Lavery (who was deputising for Noel Murphy after his recent hip operation), impressed upon the other committee members that the Irish Government would remain as stringent as they have been in the last week barring clear signs of the foot-and-mouth threat being subdued. Privately, committee members concede that they must respect the wishes of governments.

The Six Nations statement acknowledged that "there remains serious uncertainty about the timing of further matches scheduled to be played later this month and in April. The committee will keep the position under continuous review and hopes to conclude the Championship by the end of the season. Likely dates for further postponements are 5th-6th and 12th-13th of May. "The committee is committed to ensuring that in due course all matches will be played, even if this necessitates postponement of some matches until the autumn."

By conceding that the Six Nations could run into next season, the committee underlined the primacy of international rugby and that, come hell or high water, the current championship will be completed. But in provisionally setting aside dates in May, the Six Nations could be on a collision course with club owners from France, Wales and especially the militant English ones.

This could have ramifications for the AIL, as the last two full rounds of the first division are set for the first two weekends in May, though as yet there is no conflict with the European Cup, with the semi-finals set for April 21st and the final on May 20th.

The Lions coach, Graham Henry, whose squad departs on May 31st for a three-Test, 10-match tour of Australia, has already stated his preference for holding the championship back until next autumn rather than have his players flogged in an over-crowded May itinerary.

However, the national managements and unions would undoubtedly prefer the championship to be completed this season, mindful of the scheduled autumn internationals, and Irish manager Brian O'Brien arguably put forward a more reasonable counter-proposal yesterday when he suggested the Lions tour be truncated. "Even if they were to curtail the Lions tour by one game it would help."

Pending the stance to be taken by the French and Italian governments, there must be a doubt hanging over the France-Wales game in a fortnight, if not the Scotland-Italy game. Meantime, the precedent having been set by the Irish Government, the odds on the Ireland-England game taking place on Sunday, March 24th, look extremely remote.

Nor do the final round of games a fortnight subsequently, featuring Scotland-Ireland especially, as well as England-France and Italy-Wales, look cast in stone. Regarding the latter game, Italian general manager Antonio Zibana yesterday said their home game against Wales on April 8th might be a problem "because lots of Welsh fans are expected to come to Italy".

As things stand, even the most optimistic forecasts estimate that the number of foot-and-mouth cases in Britain is set to escalate for the next week, and only then tail off if the British government's measures prove effective. Viewed in that light, the Ireland-England game in three weeks - and just one week after the postponed St Patrick's Day parades - looks to have little chance of going ahead, not least because the IRFU will seek to have a decision made on that game by the end of next week.

Monday's meeting between IRFU and Department of Agriculture officials will try to find out the lay of the land with regard to next week domestically. Ideally, a window of at least 10 days without confirmed cases of foot-and-mouth in Ireland since the Armagh finding would be required before the Department of Agriculture relaxes their current stance.