THE IRFU contracts sub committee has finalised details of the contracts for the senior provincial players for next season. Interprovincial players will have the capacity to earn over £12,000 under the terms of the contracts.

The four provinces can each contract 30 players and they will be paid a basic retainer of £5,000. Each player will get a match fee of £350 for warm up matches; the players will be paid £450 for each appearance in the Interprovincial Championship and £800 for each appearance in the European Cup.

The Connacht players who company in the Europe Conference will be paid £400 for each appearance in that competition. In addition there will be a win bonus of £350 on offer for each match in the group stages of the European Cup.

With Leinster, Munster and Ulster all due to play a minimum of six matches in the European Cup at the group stages, there will, therefore be an earning capacity of at least £12,000 for a player who holds down a regular place on his provincial side. That can be considerably enhanced by wins in the European Cup.

The chairman of the contracts subcommittee Billy Lavery met the four provincial team managers - Jim Glennon (Leinster), Jerry Holland (Munster), Billy Glynn (Connacht) and Ken Reid (Ulster) - late last week and outlined the contract details.

The new provincial contracts represent an increase of 100 per cent on this season but equally the demands will be considerably greater. All four provinces now have professional directors of coaching and intensive summer training programmes are being laid out and have been indicated to the players.

The provincial coaching directors John Bevan (Munster), Mike Ruddock (Leinster), Clive Griffiths (Ulster) and Warren Gatland (Connacht) are due to meet with Ireland coach Brian Ashton later this week. Gatland may not, however, be available for the meeting.

The contract's sub committee had set finalising the provincial contracts as a priority as the provincial squads will all be in training in June. Work is still being done on the contracts in other areas including those for the senior international squad. The names of some of those who will be offered senior international squad, contracts have already been submitted to the IRFU by Ireland manager Pat Whelan. That list will be finalised after Ireland's forthcoming tour to New Zealand and Western Samoa is over.

The desire to get at least some of the players currently with English clubs back to Ireland is seen of immense importance. But the IRFU will not buy out the contracts of any player currently in England who has not got a release clause in his current contract. The desire to keep the best young players in the country is also seen as a priority especially as some of those are currently being approached by representatives of English clubs.

Meanwhile, Lavery is the nominee of the outgoing IRFU committee to take over as junior vice president of the union next season. He has done immense work as chairman of the contracts - sub committee and also rewrote the laws of the IRFU to bring them into line with the new professional era. He has been an outstanding legislator and the honour is certainly well deserved.

Former Ireland coach Gerry Murphy, who took over as coach to Terenure College last season, has been reappointed by the club for next season. Under Murphy, Terenure has had considerable success. Last season Terenure won promotion to the first division of the All Ireland League and won the Leinster Senior Cup and League double. This season they finished in third place, level on points with Lansdowne, who edged them out of second place on points difference.

. Bath forwards Federico Mendez and German Llanes have both been named in Argentina's 40 man training squad for summer Test matches against England and New Zealand.

Hooker Mendez was locked in a pay dispute with the Pumas last year while at South African provincial side Natal.

He made himself unavailable when Argentina tackled the world champion Springboks (twice) and England before Christmas, but has now been restored to their party.

Mendez joins established names like towering lock Llanes, Richmond bound pair Agustin Pichot and Rolando Martin, plus skipper Lisandro Arbizu.

All 15 of the side pipped 20-18 by England at Twickenham are included as they plot revenge in Buenos Aires on May 31st and June 7th.

The squad is coached by Jose Luis Imhoff and assisted by technical adviser Alex Wyllie.