Rearranged AIL matches postponed

While Six Nations officials will hold a crisis conference on Friday to discuss the threat posed to the championship by the foot-and-mouth outbreak, the ripple effect in Ireland resulted in the cancellation of a hastily-arranged AIB League first division programme for this coming Saturday.

Moving to avail of a free Saturday due to the postponement of the Wales-Ireland game, the IRFU took this fleeting opportunity to bring forward the March 31st first division series. However, in view of the suspected foot-and-mouth case in Armagh and a request from both the Department of Agriculture and the Minister for Sport to cancel all matches this weekend, the union postponed the rearranged AIL programme and added they were "seeking clarification from the Department of Agriculture as to the position regarding other games" and said a further statement will be issued tomorrow".

The first division games in question are: Young Munster v Blackrock College, Clontarf v Old Crescent, Buccaneers v Belfast Harlequins, Shannon v Galwegians, Dungannon v DLSP, Lansdowne v Ballymena, Terenure v Garryowen and Cork Constitution v St Mary's.

An unfortunate coincidence is that all fixtures were cross-county games, and three were cross-border encounters, though Garryowen had already successfully appealed not to go ahead with their trip to Terenure as six of their squad were scheduled to have a recreational break in Scotland this weekend.

A further irony which will not be lost on the clubs is that the union had cleared all the international players for club duty over the next two weekends. However, there must be significant doubt over the AIL programme scheduled for Saturday week. In praising the IRFU and the GAA for the example they have given to other Irish sports associations, the Minister for Sport Jim McDaid forewarned that the prospects for all outdoor sports in Ireland "isn't looking too healthy for the coming weeks". By extension, the Ireland-England game three weeks hence looks to be in grave doubt, given the known cases of foot-and-mouth disease in mainland Britain have rapidly approached the 30 mark and the fact that up to 20,000 English supporters could make the bi-annual pilgrimage to Ireland.

Quite why domestic English sports generally, and Saturday's England-Scotland game especially, appear unaffected is something of an anomaly. The Scottish Assembly met yesterday, after which they informed the Scottish Rugby Union they had no objection to Saturday's game at Twickenham going ahead.

Nonetheless, the Six Nations Championship itself must be under threat of completion, with a follow-on effect on the end-of-season pan-European programme. As things stand a cloud hangs over the France-Wales and Scotland-Italy games on March 17th, not to mention the April 7th8th series featuring Scotland v Ireland, England v France and Italy v Wales, and the Stade Francais v Munster European Cup semi-final in Lille on April 21st.

The crisis in turn has implications for the Lions tour to Australia, the 37-man squad for which is due to be picked on the weekend of April 16th-17th, before departure on June 1st. Over 10,000 British and Irish fans have already booked their travel arrangements. While pointing out that "the Lions' selection process is based over a period of nine months", Donal Lenihan admitted the disruptions to the championship are "not ideal". French rugby president Bernard Lapasset and team manager Jo Maso both said they had asked for more details of the official French policy on the disease from the French Agriculture Ministry. "At the moment we haven't really been given a lot of information about this issue and we are trying to concentrate on the match against Italy," Maso said.

Tomorrow's emergency Six Nations meeting in London, which will be linked to French and Italian officials in Rome by telephone, will discuss contingency plans for alternate dates for any other postponed matches. The Wales-Ireland game is being pencilled in for Sunday, April 29th as the Millennium Stadium is to host the FA Cup final on May 13th, and the FA have an agreement with the Welsh Union that the pitch will not be used for 10 days beforehand.

The Six Nations chairman Allan Hosie maintained media speculation that the championship may not be completed was "wrong". Significantly he also stated that "we are aware that the British Lions are going on tour and are aware of domestic fixtures. But we must explain that international rugby football is a bread-winner for many unions."

Indeed, none of the unions or federations are insured against cancellations caused by a foot-and-mouth outbreak, and reading between the lines, clearly all domestic competition and even the European Cup will be kicked to touch in order to prioritise the Championship, which has been completed every year bar one, 1972, in the last 100 years.