Struggle for clubs will become even greater

News that the proposed Celtic League will come into operation next season is likely to provoke mixed feelings within Irish rugby, even among the provinces, never mind the clubs who will fear that this will sound the death knell for their game and the All-Ireland League.

Declan Kidney, for one, has been bemoaning the six-series home-and-away Interprovincial Championship, insofar as the provinces are competing in an ultracompetitive and parochial domestic dogfight rather than preparing in a more relaxed environment for Europe which could be more conducive to blooding fringe squad players.

However, the home-and-away format - coupled with a Super 12 points scoring system - at least ensured a more level playing field with regard to both the interprovincial title and qualification for the European Cup, while even the provincial managements, and certainly the championship organisers, will be conscious that the once moribund interprovincials have never had it so good.

As recently as last Friday night, an estimated crowd of 10,000 turned up at Ravenhill for the re-match between Ulster and Leinster, clearly more attracted to the game as opposed to being turned off by Ulster's defeat in Donnybrook seven nights previously. Similarly, crowds of 10,000 (for Ulster v Munster), 7,000 (Munster v Leinster in Cork) and even the 4,000 and 1,500 crowds for the Leinster-Connacht and Connacht-Ulster games would have been unheard of in the old format of three series.

As a prospective sell-out between Munster and Ulster looms in Musgrave Park next Friday evening for a potential interprovincial decider, it's worth wondering whether or not the interpros will suffer from being consumed by a Celtic League, and whether visits from the likes of Caerphilly, Neath and Edinburgh Reivers would carry the same cache or interest. As an ominous portent, the Welsh/Scottish League hasn't been exactly a rip-roaring success, with the Scottish super districts (already assured of annual participation in the European Cup regardless of their performances and results elsewhere) seriously underperforming.

As things stand, there is at least a clear demarcation line between the Interprovincial Championship and the European competitions, but with an increased number of clashes between the Celtic teams, it's also not unreasonable to deduce that the European Cup may be diluted to some degree, or that the Celtic League is sailing into already chartered territory.

In the heel of the hunt, the Celtic League will still mean more matches for the provinces. Their existing minimum of 12 (including six pool matches in Europe) per season to a maximum of 15 (as happened to Ulster and Munster in each of the last two seasons due to reaching the European Cup final) will henceforth be upped from a minimum of 14 to a potential 19. All the while too, there will be a campaign to expand the one proven commercial winner underneath Test level, namely the European Cup.

Next season's projected increase is bound to have further repercussions for the clubs when also taking into account the additional seven or eight matches per season for Ireland's Test, A and under-21 sides, not to mention annual summer tours. The IRFU's national fitness director, Dr Liam Hennessy, is on record as stating that the maximum number of games played by top players should be reduced from the current ceiling of 30/32, to 25. Yet, axiomatically, the AIL first division has been increased from 11 matches last season to 15 this season and next. Last week, representatives of the first division clubs held their latest round-the-table talks about the near crisis affecting their game, although talk of reverting to a 12-team first division was averted pending confirmation that the Celtic League would come into being.

Dr Hennessy's ceiling could be reached without an Irish-based Test player appearing once in the AIL, and the clubs will clearly struggle to acquire their non-international, provincially contracted players for occasional AIL appearances, never mind a full campaign.

The clubs have been to the forefront in nurturing young indigenous talent as well as bringing in foreign players and coaches with varying degrees of success. As a 48-club scouting network, they still know their way around the schools, junior and senior scenes better than the provinces, but without their leading players what's to motivate them carrying on their layer of work in this pyramid structure? And what's to attract aspiring players?

To a degree, though, the IRFU were dutybound to row in with the Celtic League, so maintaining the unofficial Celtic brotherhood which also comes into play during vexed negotiations with the English and French over television and sponsorship.

Indeed, for the Welsh and Scottish Unions, mindful of the poor state of their own domestic competitions, the Celtic League in its original format still doesn't go far enough. Hence, even IRFU officials will be wary that the Welsh and Scots, were they lured by a counter offer from England such as the oft-mooted British League (which the Union would find very difficult to incorporate into the season and are on record as being against) then their Celtic brothers would be off like scalded cats.