Southam expected to announce resignation

Ray Southam is expected to announce his resignation as the IRFU's Director of Rugby development shortly. It is, however, anticipated that Southam will see out the remainder of his contract, which expires in August, as one of the most important full-time employees of the union.

Meanwhile, the fall-out continues from the compromise solution to the postponed Wanderers-Buccaneers game, whereby the Dublin club keep their Division Two status in an expanded second division of 16 clubs along with Malone and Ballynahinch, who were half-way toward resolving their aborted two-legged play-off.

The groundswell of anger toward the compromise has led to talk within some clubs of boycotting Wanderers next season, or taking some other form of unofficial sanction against the Lansdowne Road club.

More pertinently, several are examining their positions, such as Monkstown, whose executive met last night to "consider our options" according to club president Arthur Murphy. The Instonians PRO Tom Matthews said his club "are very angry" over the whole episode, and admitted that they considered whether to withdraw from the AIB League completely. "We abided by the rules, and played all our matches, and now we are faced with a scenario where we have only nine league games next season."

The chairman of the so-called Division Two Association, Bective president Louis Magee, echoed the words of his Monkstown counterpart by describing last Friday's outcome as "a very sad day for club rugby in Ireland. I really feel that the whole ethos of the game has been upturned."

The compromise solution has ramifications beyond the clubs directly concerned, namely Wanderers, Malone and Ballynahinch. Some clubs are now seeking legal advice with a view to taking cases on the basis that the promotion and relegation regulations were not applied across the four divisions. There could be more threats of court cases yet.