THE Irish provincial team managements should know at the weekend if their players with the London Irish club will be released to play for their provinces in the European Cup.

A decision on the club's attitude to the releases will be made after the club's chief executive, Duncan Leopold, and the chairman of the trading company that. runs the club's commercial affairs, David Jackson, report on the meeting they held in London yesterday with Irish officials.

Ireland manager Pat Whelan and the three provincial managers, Ken Reid (Ulster), Jim Glennon (Leinster) and Colm Tucker (Munster), met Leopold and Jackson and outlined the case for the players release. The club made a decision last week that no players would be released to play for their provinces. The decision was made for contractual reasons.

In the light of that decision, Jackson and Leopold were not empowered to rescind that move and must report back to the board of the trading company. However, the tone of the discussions were such that there is now optimism that some players will be released for the European Cup, which starts on Saturday week.

"Both sides established a much clearer understanding of the position of the club and the provinces," said Whelan last night. "An appreciation of each other's position and difficulties is fundamental to coming to an amicable and satisfactory agreement. The meeting was conducted in that spirit. Various suggestions and options were discussed. We are now hoping that these will prove fruitful. We outlined our case and listened to and appreciated the club's position.

"It has to be borne in mind that the officials we met were not in a position to rescind the decision taken last week. There is a procedure that has to be followed and we did not expect a ready and immediate answer.