Keeping the tried and the trusted

Never a month or so goes by without some proposal from across the water regarding a new competition or another alteration to the domestic seasons. By comparison, somewhat serenely, the IRFU oversee a three-tiered structure which not only are they fairly happy with but is probably envied across channel, certainly by their celtic cousins.

Wresting control of their leading players was the coup de grace, and admittedly phase two of that ongoing struggle resumes now. Nor is the structure to the Irish season without flaws.

Another four to six, say, competitive matches for the provinces would be close to ideal, as far as the Irish management, IRFU and Dr Liam Hennessy see things. And, on the basis that the international team is and always will be the flagship of the game in this country, what's best for the Ireland XV is best for Irish rugby.

Thus, on the premise that there would be a maximum of 32 games for the international players in a regular season, this would entail a minimum of about 10 or 12 European Cup games, six interpros, five Six Nations games and maybe a couple of autumn internationals.

The last thing the Irish season needs is a Celtic League, or at any rate a 22-game version. This would overcrowd the representative season, which is ostensibly the main reason why the Union rejected the proposal from their celtic cousins, but perhaps most of all it would effectively kill the club game.

Mindful of the depressed state of the club game in Scotland, the Union don't want to go further down that road. Even allowing for the vested interests prompted by the old club ties, there is a recognition that the clubs know their way around the Irish scene, and are still the main recruiting agents for players if no longer the exclusive ones. They need to be given a slice of the cake, albeit the lowest and a shrinking one at that.

True, this general idea for an Irish domestic season, as the clubs would be the first to point out, would only leave about seven/nine games or thereabouts in which the internationals would play for their clubs.

It's better than nothing and once cast in stone then the clubs can agree on a mutually beneficial structure. Whether they would agree on anything is another matter, and therein lies the rub.

History has taught us that the clubs are a bad advert for democracy. Witness the All-Ireland league itself, initially rejected by the conservative majority amongst the clubs before the IRFU simply started it and eventually all the clubs realised that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Had the clubs grasped the AIL initiative earlier, who knows but they may even have been better placed than the provinces to represent Ireland in Europe. That's by the way for it will never happen now but it shows that self-rule isn't necessarily for the best.

One way of making do with their internationals for eight or so matches in the latter half of the season (during and after the Six Nations) is to throw their hat at it and simply revert to amateur status. But this is laden with flaws and would be impossible to police, as the old, shamateurish under-the-table days proved.

A better alternative would be to bite the bullet and accept the principle that a good chunk of their AIL season, say the first half, would be played without their international players and maybe even their provincial players.

Even the hawkish English clubs accepted a variation of this principle, albeit on a one-off basis, during this season's World Cup. Accepting the economic realities and pragmatism of the situation, they carried on with the Allied Dunbar League regardless, awarding two points for a win while their international players were otherwise engaged, and then reverting to three points for a win when the internationals returned to the club fold. Quite clever really.

It enabled them to continue with home fixtures every second week, admittedly with reduced media and public interest. But this at least served to keep the stiles ticking over to some degree, that the club bars stayed open and so forth.

By contrast, the Irish clubs steadfastly stick to the principle of only playing the AIL when the international stars are available. So instead they plough on for the first four months or so of the season with provincial development leagues and Cups, which have all the cache of the Auto Windscreen Shield and wouldn't lure more than two men and a dog down to the clubhouse on a Saturday afternoon.

Yet Irish clubs could go down a similar route, whereby the AIL is run as a true, home and away league, from autumn onwards. It could be divided into two phases, wherein the contracted players return for the final top eight-bottom eight phase. Whatever.

They wouldn't be losing fixtures, only gaining them, admittedly without their contracted players, but at least it would be something more meaningful to host every second Saturday. It would also, in many ways, produce a more level playing field.

As things stand, on an almost weekly basis, clubs with little or no contracted players are pitted against clubs with half a dozen to a dozen players who are fully paid professionals. It happened when Clontarf played St Mary's on Sunday, and when DLSP played Cork Con on Saturday. The IRFU are actually paying towards imbalanced contests.

Were the likes of DLSP and Clontarf to play their better off counterparts in a first phase almost devoid of contracted players that would be eminently fairer. It would also compel clubs to nurture their own talent more, rather than relying on theirs and the IRFU's chequebooks, and to have more strength in depth.

In this and other ways the benefits would extend beyond the clubs. Fringe provincial players keen to state their case, or those returning from injury, would have a far more meaningful environment in which to do so. The provincial coaches would also be able to monitor these players in a more meaningful context, while their provincial seasons are in full swing, as opposed to when they are effectively over.

Alas, the IRFU are reluctant to go down a confrontational route with the clubs, preferring not to force any format on them. So instead, for the foreseeable future, the clubs will play far more meaningless matches than meaningful ones. Isn't that more than a bit daft?