New Year, same old story. Seven Dublin clubs peered out of their dressing-rooms to doomsday weather conditions and, sure enough, seven Dublin clubs in Saturday's eight games which were played duly went out and lost.

When the going gets heavy, the heavies get going. Looking back, the closest Leinster clubs came to mounting a serious challenge to the Munster hegemony was when the fancy back-lines of Blackrock and St Mary's were supplemented by some real mean hard men up front. It was no coincidence, surely, that both had Kiwi number eights in Dean Oswald and Brent Pope, along with honest mullickers like Paul Wallace, Mick O'Neill and Steve Jameson.

Saturday's results re-affirmed all of the old doubts about the Leinster challenge. But in the greater scheme of things, the abysmal conditions and resultant standard of rugby also re-affirmed many of the old doubts about the club game, the AIB All-Ireland League and the general structures and direction of Irish rugby.

Had the Shannon-Young Munster game not been called off, and a crowd of 8,000 or so had witnessed a typically fierce Munster derby, in many respects it would only have applied a misleading varnish. The AIL is about as far away from the international scene as it ever was and shows little sign of getting any closer. Yet here it is, providing a five-week preamble to the Five Nations Championship for our domestic aspirants to the international team.

It's all very well and good paying some of these players, and a host of others who realistically have drifted further from the international scene, 35K a year plus a car. But what are the Union, and by extension the players themselves, getting from this deal? Is it value for money?

This is all quite critical because like never before, the money has to be well spent. Rugby is in the throes of its most revolutionary era ever.

An aristocracy, of which Ireland were one of the original eight, will gradually be replaced by a meritocracy. Come the new millennium, the likelihood is that Ireland will either have to prequalify for the World Cup and be reduced to one/none at the European Cup table, or will retain its elitist place at both tables.

Rarely has there been such disillusionment within the game, a feeling that the IRFU are presiding over the demise of Irish rugby. The IRFU are a soft target but, on the eve of another Executive meeting this Friday, there is a pressing need for clear direction as to the future structure of the game here, and only they can give it.

A natural starting point at the top of the pyramid is the international team - the flagship of Irish rugby - and from there we should work downwards. At the second tier lies the key choice between the club game and the provincial game - not the current fudge.

Even the scrapping of the interpros would show signs of direction. In truth, there are too many clubs and perhaps not enough provinces, but the latter are surely far better equipped to provide that second tier.

Over a year ago the Leinster Branch commissioned a report from Jim Glennon, Brendan Mullin, Finbar Crowley and John Hussey. Essentially, after much work, they recommended a twotier structure with the provinces operating as fulltime set-ups feeding the international squad. The clubs would be allocated roughly an eight-week slot for a vibrant national competition at the end of the season.

The Leinster Branch watered it down, and the IRFU effectively rejected the recommendations. But nothing has changed and the recommendations still hold true today, more than ever.

The recent contracting of Mark McCall, Conor McGuinness and Alan Quinlan - while overlooking the likes of Kevin Nowlan and Reggie Corrigan - along with the presence of four contracted Garryowen players at Stradbrook on Saturday who aren't currently within an ass's roar of the international team, again served to highlight the mess that is the contractual system.

One of the consequences is that the clubs are being encouraged and deluded into thinking they are competing in a truly professional environment. They're not and they can't afford it anyway. One club hasn't paid its high profile coach since September and apparently owes him in the region of £20,000.

Rather than continuing to delude the clubs, it's time to focus the contracts on the four provincial squads - and at the same time stop the largely needless and profligate contracting of an international squad.

Yet I hear from a variety of reliable sources that the Union are considering another classic fudge, namely upping the number of contracted provincial players from six to 10 or 12. What good is that to Warren Gatland, Mike Ruddock, Declan Kidney or whoever gets the Ulster job?

Next season is the second and last year of the existing European Cup format, incorporating three of the Irish provinces. As it stands, the European Cup is a potential godsend to Irish rugby. It couldn't have been devised better in terms of providing much improved playing standards for all of our domestic-based players.

Sure, it could be timed better, but were the English lobby for a reduction of Irish participants to one or none to be successful, it would arguably be as big a blow to the game here as exclusion from the World Cup.

Doing everything possible to improve the provinces' showing in next season's European competitions should now be marked URGENT in block red capitals and sitting at every chair for next Friday's Executive meeting.

The best way forward seems blindingly logical. Start fully contracting provincial squads of 25 for next season as of now. Stagger a bonus scheme all the way up though A and full internationals so that the best can still be well rewarded.

Use the gap in the season between the European Cup and the Five Nations to play a six-series interprovincial championship, along with proper rest periods and maybe some warm weather training. If needs be a Celtic Cup or whatever else could dovetail with the autumn international friendlies. Such a structure is more likely to lure players into staying here or coming home.

This doesn't leave much for the clubs and of course the underlying problem is that the Executive members either wear a club tie around their necks or have one looking at them every time they open their wardrobes. But the bullet has to be bitten.

It's a tough call and I don't envy them it. But writing cheques and throwing money at players doesn't make a union professional. Professionalism is about a state of mind. Which is why the New Zealand Union executives voted themselves out of office a few years ago and appointed six full-time professionals to run the game.

So either the executive changes its policy, or changes itself.