THE PROBLEM with the golden year of 2009 was always going to be how to follow it up. That’s what happens when you increase expectations. Of course, Irish rugby was never likely to repeat the clean sweep of last season, not this season or any in the future for that matter.

In a way, Ireland, Leinster and Munster having been contenders across the board, this season of near misses and what-might-have-beens underlines what a truly phenomenal campaign the 2008-09 season was.

They weren’t that far away, but injuries to key men, even the slightest dilution of desire after reaching so many promised lands in recent years and improvements by others took a toll (and it doesn’t help when, on top of Ireland playing in Paris, both Leinster and Munster were drawn away in France in the semi-finals).

The future doesn’t look like getting easier any time soon though. French clubs, backed by multi-millionaire benefactors, have strengthened their hand to the point that Biarritz and Stade Français have become mid-table also rans.

Leicester have a Munster-like culture and both Northampton and Saracens are coming forces, as are the Welsh, and especially the Ospreys and Cardiff Blues.

The golden generation, and they truly have been, have a few more big games in them. But this season has perhaps marked the beginning of the end of an era, with the next World Cup and the 2011-12 season marking something of a watershed.

Ireland should have been at their peak at the botched World Cup of 2007, all the more so as it was in France. As the injury to Paul O’Connell shows, Declan Kidney, his coaches and the Union’s medical and fitness staffs have a difficult task in ensuring experienced campaigners arrive in New Zealand in November 2011 in peak condition.

With Friday’s Baabaas game the first of 17 or 18 Irish matches between now and then, the provinces will see less of their leading players, and thus face a decidedly uncertain season or two.

All of this might be idle chit chat when set against the possible ramifications of the proposal by Minister for Communications Eamon Ryan to make Ireland’s Six Nations games and the province’s Heineken Cup matches free-to-air. And this when, as one letter writer observed, we do not have free-to-water for free-to-dump. The world has gone screwy, and the Minister’s ill-informed and/or opportunistic proposal was compounded by the alarming non-views and verbal gymnastics of the Minister for Sport Mary Hanafin.

Whether you like the way the IRFU have handled this, or whatever your thoughts on the principle of ringfencing sports events on terrestrial television, the issues go way, way deeper than that. And whether you agree with or dispute the huge financial implications claimed by the IRFU, clearly there would be a significant drop in television income.

Just as damaging, the IRFU would be hamstrung and thus isolated at the negotiating table, which history has shown is highly volatile.

The English, particularly, have taken both the Six Nations and the Heineken Cup to the brink, first by negotiating their own television deal with Sky and then with the Anglo-French demands prior to the new seven-year ERC agreement two years ago. They would love to see Ireland isolated, and with the Tories, not exactly enemies of Rupert Murdoch or opponents of a free market, re-assuming power in Britain, they’re not likely to follow suit either any time soon.

It’s also errant nonsense to claim Australian rugby union has been killed by pay-per-view television. In fact, professional rugby union in Australia wouldn’t exist were it not for the funding from pay-per-view. It’s also misleading to compare Ireland with France, given their population and vastly more competitive television market.

Besides, as things stand, next season RTÉ will have the Six Nations live, highlights of the Heineken Cup, the Magners League, Ireland’s under-20 games, A games and the AIB League. Aren’t we moving dangerously close to a monopolisation as it is?

It’s not as if free-to-air television is exactly starved of rugby and this is the same station which is not sending its commentator to the forthcoming tour of Australia and New Zealand for games that are on pay-per-view and perfectly timed for radio.

Whatever the financial loss and political isolation, the net effect would be the Union and the provinces would not be able to fend off French, English and yes, Welsh clubs for some of their prized assets.

The golden generation have been incredibly loyal to the IRFU and to Irish rugby. For sure, the Government’s tax rebate to retired professional Irish sports people who finish their careers in Ireland encouraged many of them to stay. That’s what it was designed to do and remains an example of Government making a positive contribution to sport.

But they have also stayed here in part because of the way they are managed by the Union’s central contracting system, and by the Union’s medical system, although there are worrying signs standards there have started to slip lately.

The primary reason the likes of, say, Brian O’Driscoll, Paul O’Connell and Ronan O’Gara, have remained here, however, is the desire to win trophies, especially the Heineken Cup, with their home provinces, with their friends, and for their friends, families and supporters. Were more remunerative packages and more competitive teams elsewhere, one couldn’t blame any player in the slightest for leaving.

(By the by, it was interesting to hear Tommy Bowe reveal after Saturday’s final that following this summer’s tour the Ospreys will be affording him six weeks’ holidays. The Irish players have just four weeks!) Furthermore, the IRFU’s cost-cutting and reduced number of international contracts (from 30 to 22) has already started to test that loyalty, and next season the provinces will see less and less of their leading Irish lights.

One other thing Minister, and the IRFU. Start diluting the provinces of even a few of these frontline players, see Leinster and Munster fail to qualify for the knock-out stages of the Heineken Cup and the Magners League and you can also start counting those empty seats in the RDS and Thomond Park.

Those 18,000 and 26,000 capacity grounds will suddenly start to look awfully big. No more hosting Magners League finals and no more charging €75 or €110 through Ticketmaster for the final either. Maybe the Government will make them free-to-ground.