ON RUGBY:FOR THE previous two seasons in the Ulster Bank League, Divisions One A and One B were streamlined to eight clubs each, with the top three in Division One A and the top one in One B progressing to the semi-final play-offs. Each club was entitled to field up to three contracted players on a given match day.

For two seasons, the AIL probably reached standards that hadn’t been scaled since the halcyon days of the early and mid-1990s.

So what do the clubs do? Shred it all and restructure the league yet again, upping Division One A and One B to 10 clubs apiece, with the effect of diluting standards in the top tier. Brilliant.

Further diluting the top tiers, the clubs also decided the number of contracted players should be reduced from three to two (one forward and one back) on any match day, and, just to put the tin hat on it, they also decided to do away with the play-offs. Genius.

All of this followed a survey which the IRFU commissioned throughout the club game last season. Frankly, all of this is a bad advert

for democracy and letting the clubs decide amongst themselves was a poor substitute for the lack of leadership and vision within the union for the club game. Not for the first time, you have the distinct impression that the club game is just a nuisance for the union.

Of course, deciding the league title and all other promotion and relegation matters by dint of the old-fashioned way of points accrued is, at face value, the fairest method. But it also dilutes interest levels and denies a guaranteed finale.

Granted, last season’s final on the Donnybrook dustbowl didn’t portray the league in the best light, but in a league which is struggling for any kind of media exposure, why deny yourselves the three televised live games of the campaign, deny your sponsors their day in the sun and scrap games which are more likely to attract supporters?

Aside from a residual feeling that it is a little unfair for teams to win leagues without topping the table, there’s always been a reluctance to incur the cost and logistical difficulties of play-offs. It never helped that the lower divisional play-offs had no real tangible value, as promotion and relegation weren’t at stake.

Granted, Division One A has had its flaws in the last two seasons, not least that it was an exclusively Leinster-Munster affair, but the clamour for the top three play-off places and the scrap to avoid relegation in Division One A ensured pretty much everyone had something to play for until the final weeks.

Not so this season. Even though there are still five rounds to go, effectively the title has been reduced to a three-horse race between Clontarf, St Mary’s and Young Munster, after which there is an eight-point gap.

The likes of Lansdowne and Cork Con might disagree, but while reeling in one or two of the leading trio might still be feasible, overtaking all of them is another matter.

Note two Leinster clubs in the top three, and Clontarf beating Con with three ex-Con players and ex-Dolphin scrumhalf Sam Cronin in their line-up last Saturday – all further evidence of the shift in power in tandem with emigration and/or migration to the capital. The scrapping of play-offs also means all those in the expanded, 10-team Division One B can have no aspirations toward winning the title.

There are plenty of visionary clubs in the lower tiers who aspire to higher things. Saturday’s Division Two A south Dublin derby between DLSP and Seapoint was a veritable cracker, with Seapoint winning 26-25 and four tries to three to move within two points of their second-placed neighbours.

But frankly, if small-minded clubs in the lower divisions don’t have the vision to realise that end-of-season play-offs ensure a dramatic finale to the season and a day out for the club game and sponsors alike, then they shouldn’t be imposing their will on those, especially in the top two flights, who do.

Again, insofar as one can tell, the decision to reduce the number of contracted players from three to two appears to have been borne out of the safety issues which might occur in the All-Ireland Cup if, say, a top-tier team meets one from the lower tiers, although no doubt this masks a degree of envy as well.

So why not just impose this restriction in the cup? If anything, the number of contracted players should have been increased to four.

The argument against this is that all the contracted players will gravitate towards

the leading clubs. All the better. Whatever about that, having a top tier of four or five teams populated by fully-contracted, development/part-time contracted and academy players would only increase standards and make the league more relevant for the provinces.

Instead, the provincial A teams have filled that void, as they were always likely to do, and the club game has been relegated to the fourth tier in the playing pathway, behind the international game, the provinces and now the provincial A sides.

Provincial coaches, many of whom have come from the Southern Hemisphere, have generally left a fine legacy. But it suits their needs to have provincial A games in the British Irish Cup – a logistical and expensive nightmare of a competition which doesn’t even have a sponsor – as it condenses their fringe players on to one pitch. Which is fair enough. They have very busy jobs which have only become more demanding with the addition of two Italian teams to the Pro 12, and thus have even less time or inclination to take in club games. By extension, ambitious players will want to play for their provincial A teams rather than their clubs.

But these coaches are, in most instances, passing through. The state of the club game in 10 years’ time was never of any concern to Michael Cheika, understandably so. The provinces should not get everything they want, particularly if it is to the evident detriment of the clubs, who have been the lifeblood of Irish rugby for decades and are still introducing many thousands of young players to the game every weekend.

Were Division One A more condensed

and more heavily populated by contracted players, the league would not only be a stepping stone for players, but for coaches and administrators as well. Most top-tier coaches are full-time anyway. But the league is as much a cul de sac for ambitious and talented coaches as a pathway. The Irish club game needs direction and leadership from above, as it clearly isn’t coming from within.