Ireland may pay for belated Celtic move

On Rugby: No sooner is the Celtic brotherhood belatedly singing harmoniously off the same sheet than one of them, inevitably, hits a bum note. There is outrage within Irish rugby circles over Wales's apparently clandestine negotiations with the dastardly English for an Anglo-Welsh competition which might seriously undermine any hopes of galvanising the Celtic League, but to a degree it's been self-imposed, writes Gerry Thornley.

Irish indignation isn't just because an Anglo-Welsh competition might undermine the provinces' ability to field their frontline players for 16 out of 20 matches and so have the competition as an out-and-out qualifier for the Heineken European Cup with no IRFU strings attached (ie keeping Connacht out of the loop).

Such an Anglo-Welsh competition, and the ensuing Celtic rift it is bound to provoke, might also make any prospective sponsors of the Celtic League think twice before coming on board. And the competition desperately needs not only a belated main sponsor and the greater commercial clout that that would entail, but preferably a face-lift as well.

Even if it was only cosmetic, as much as anything, the competition could simply do with a new name, be it the Guinness Cup, the Carlsberg Cup, the Heineken League, the Milk Cup, the Egg Cup or whatever. Because of its troubled history to date, pockmarked with disagreements between the three Celtic countries over the actual make-up of the competition, its format, its scheduling, its status as a qualifying route into the European Cup and what our fellow Celts see as the apparently lukewarm interest of the IRFU/Irish provinces/Irish players, the mere name the Celtic League has been somewhat discredited.

Most worrying of all though, an Anglo-Welsh Cup would be seen as the thin end of the wedge in that, were it a success, it could lead to the Welsh cutting their ties with their fellow Celts and jumping aboard a superior Anglo-Welsh League in, say, two years' time.

That the Welsh would be seriously interested in the revival of annual Anglo-Welsh matches which traditionally ensured full houses in the days when such affairs were merely "friendlies" is hardly surprising, all the more so in light of their own frustrations with attitudes toward the Celtic League within the IRFU and the Irish provinces, especially Leinster and Munster.

In the last couple of campaigns the Irish attitude toward the competition has been seen as less than wholehearted by their Celtic cousins.

It has particularly irked the Welsh, primarily, and the Scots that the Irish have persistently sent over sides for Celtic League matches without their frontline, Test stars such as Brian O'Driscoll, Gordon D'Arcy, Ronan O'Gara and Anthony Foley. Last season, these players played scarcely a handful of matches, in several instances only two or three, and this season they were made available for only nine of the 20 matches, and no one has been more frustrated by this than Leinster and Munster themselves.

The Welsh and the Scots don't mind beating the Irish provinces, but they'd much prefer to attempt to beat the Irish when playing their best hands. This has been their biggest frustration with Ireland's commitment to the Celtic League, and one senses that Irish rugby has never quite grasped this, which is ironic when you think of the furore which greeted Bourgoin's decision to field a second string team at Lansdowne Road this season in the European Cup.

In tandem with this, while the advent of Setanta Sports as main broadcaster in Ireland has been welcomed, Irish television hasn't brought as much financial clout to the competition as BBC Wales and S4C. Irish television rights, whether it be RTÉ, TV3 or Setanta, can't compete with the BBC, all the more so when BBC Grandstand enter the picture with the weight of the English clubs alongside them.

Buoyed by the success of the pre-season friendly showdown between the Llanelli Scarlets and Wasps - champions of Wales and England respectively - last August the BBC see a gilt-edged opportunity to fill yawning slots on their Saturday Grandstand programme as well as supplementing their revived rugby coverage.

There is talk of a guaranteed £800,000 to divvy up between the four Welsh regions. "It's 200 grand we can't turn down," as one of them put it yesterday. So, while the Welsh RFU may be reluctant to anger their Irish and Scottish counterparts, they also won't want to open old wounds with the regions and their benefactors. And the bottom line is that money talks. In any case, in light of all these leaks, all the sounds emanating from Wales suggest that negotiations are far more advanced than they are letting on.

Ironically, the proposed (and seemingly agreed) fixture itinerary for next season came with the assurances to Leinster and Munster - and thus in turn to their fellow Celts - that their frontline players would be available for 16 of their 20 matches. This was made possible by the scrapping of the Celtic Cup and an agreement that the Celtic League would not clash with either the autumn internationals or the Six Nations.

Not alone has that proposal been jeopardised by the possibility of the Welsh trying to incorporate at least three weekends for a new Anglo-Welsh Cup, but Ireland's belated commitment to the Celtic League might have come too late - the horse may have already bolted. Perhaps an Anglo-Welsh competition can live in sweet harmony with a Celtic League but if so it really puts it up to the latter competition and Irish rugby to make a more wholehearted commitment. Otherwise, the fat lady will be clearing her throat.