Need for change highlighted

IT IS a pity, in a great many ways, that the Irish rugby population didn't experience this development tour first-hand. No amount of printed words can truly convey the ever-widening gulf in standards between the two hemispheres and, more pertinently, New Zealand and Ireland.

Yet the printed word is the main means by which the experiences of the last five weeks will be conveyed, not least to the IRFU by Pat Whelan. His lengthy dossier will recommend some radical steps, primarily the reduction of the AIL first division to eight clubs - with effect from next season.

Although the provisional fixture list has already been released for the 1997- 98 season, the IRFU have been responsive to Whelan's initial recommendations. To that end, the first division clubs met with the IRFU yesterday and the Irish manager is optimistic that the pruning of the top tier will be conducted in time for next season.

"We just have to get that right. I've no doubt that the three-tiered structure which is in support of the international team is absolutely spot on. The provinces, with the onset of the European Cup, are the perfect bridge between the club game and the international game. However, the AIL is actually working against the interests of the national team.

"I have recommended that the first division be reduced to eight clubs, with immediate effect. I will include this in my report to the IRFU within a week of going home," added Whelan.

"It's nonsensical that the first division has 14 clubs. We can't hope to provide the requisite standard of rugby for our representative players in that environment."

For everyone who consumed a staple diet of AIL rugby last season, it is hard to dispute Whelan's contention that the expansion of the AIL first division last season was a retrograde step. "I think it is absolutely fair to say that the level of competition dropped off dramatically and that the quality of rugby dipped accordingly. Effectively, we need eight reasonably powerful clubs."

Ultimately, Whelan wants to see a greater concentration of Ireland's best players amongst a smaller elite. While the reduction to eight clubs might not have that effect immediately, it should be a stepping stone in that direction.

"That's why it has to come in immediately, I've no doubt in my mind about that. It's my duty as the international team manager to ensure that as much as possible can be done to facilitate Brian Ashton and the improvement of the Irish team. And if we're being honest, the AIL was very poor last season."

This tour has hammered home the need to look at Irish rugby in a cold and clinical, rather than traditional, way and Whelan emphasises that so far, the IRFU have given him all the support he has asked for.

"Everybody involved has been shocked at the way the game is played out here. The pace, the power, the ball retention and the overall philosophy that they have has resulted in the gap between the southern and northern hemispheres widening even further, with the southern hemipshere developing their game ever more rapidly.

"So on that basis it's been a hugely informative exercise. We have to bear in mind the level of experience which we brought, as against what we faced in the earlier matches particularly. In losing seven internationals we lost the backbone of the squad.

"But in another sense, the shocks and the sheer size of the defeats only helped to further focus on the difference in standards. It enabled us to review our standing in the world game and what we need to do."

Whelan's biggest concern is "our very small rugby playing population compared to the major powers. It's therefore incongruous that our clubs and our players should all be playing a different type of game. We all have to be playing the same type of game, so that when the players rejoin the international squad we won't have to be starting from scratch with them."

Returning to the AIL, Whelan cites one first division encounter last season in which "I saw a team employ an out-half to kick the ball the first 14 times he received it. We're going nowhere with that kind of rugby."

Whelan ascribes to Brian Ashton's view that if you kick the ball away, even to touch, in the modern international game that is effectively a turnover.

"We kicked the ball 14 times against Northland and from six of those kicks they scored four tries," Whelan points out, adding: "On seven occasions against the Academy we kicked the ball, and they scored 38 points from them. That's about the bottom line. In a generalised way, rugby is becoming like basketball. That's probably an over-simplification in the modern game but if the opposition have the ball, they are going to keep it until they score unless they turnover the ball or you make a big hit in the tackle."

Whelan also talks at length about changing the mentality of Irish rugby players, and the levels of expectations amongst them whereby a close defeat can be interpreted as a "moral victory". It's an old Irish classic, that one, still being released in vinyl.

In changing the players' mentality on the pitch and a willingness by all IS players to assume decision-making responsibilities, Ashton needs an elite squad established almost immediately. Hence, Whelan will be submitting a list of "30 to 35" names upon their return next week to the IRFU, to form an elite squad, most of whom he recommends should be contracted through to the 1999 World Cup.

Word has it that in the abortive negotiations with the players' agents an IRFU representative claimed that the contracts would be solely for Irish-based players, as they "didn't envisage any of our leading players being based abroad."

This is now clearly acknowledged to be some form of Utopian vision, for many of Ireland's top players will continue to be based in the superior Courage League in England.

It will be a hard pill to swallow ford many on this tour who are destined to miss out on the elite squad, thought Whelan vows that "the door is not closed".

Beginning with the November internationals at home to Canada and the All Blacks, followed by the visit of Italy on December 20th, there will be additions to the squad, and following the Five Nations there is a full tour to South Africa next summer as well as one to Australia in June of 1999 prior to the World Cup later that autumn.

It's a long, winding road ahead, but if the IRFU apply the lessons of this tour as conveyed in the printed word by Whelan, this will have been a decidedly useful start.