SALVATION LIES WITHIN
The pandemic has plunged clubs into crisis but it has also focused minds and, finally, it seems there is a way to make them relevant again...
IT’S a Saturday morning in the mid1990s, the All-Ireland League is in its pomp and, across the country, club teams are meeting up in preparation for 2.30 kick-offs that afternoon. There’s a standard routine, common to all – assemble in a hotel function room in tracksuits for tea/coffee and sandwiches and maybe a bit of strapping from the physio, then a team meeting to focus minds before everyone relocates to the car-park to walk through moves (lineouts for the forwards, passing drills for the backs), a final huddle and then head to the ground.
On this particular Saturday, Highfield RFC gather in a Cork city centre hotel and the coach is immediately concerned about the mood – too much levity, not enough gravity ahead of a must-win AIL game now just a few hours away.
He’s particularly bothered about the backrow and specifically about their ability to get the calls right after miscommunication issues in recent matches.
Back then, the Bishopstown club had three basic calls off the back of the scrum – Highfield One (an ‘8-9’ call, where the No8 breaks right and feeds the scrum-half); Highfield Two (scrum-half breaks right and passes back inside to the flanker) and Highfield Three (No 8 passes directly to the scrum-half arcing wide on the right).
Simple stuff, but the coach wants to make sure they have it down.
When the team meeting begins, he starts by laying into the squad as a whole. As he’s talking, the coach notices that his starting blindside flanker (let’s call him Paul) appears to have nodded off.
‘Paul!’ he thunders, ‘are you taking this in?’ No reaction. ‘PAUL! Are you listening to me?’ A sharp elbow from a team-mate jolts the flanker from his reverie. ‘Sorry coach, what did you say?’ ‘Jesus Christ… this is what I’m talking about… we need to switch on here… Paul, what’s Highfield One?’ ‘Excuse me?’
‘What’s Highfield One?’
At this stage, Paul realises he’s in trouble and searches his mind desperately, the rest of the squad shifting awkwardly in their seats as the silence drags on.
‘WHAT’S HIGHFIELD ONE?’ the coach roars again at the flanker.
Panic... then, with a surge of relief, Paul seizes upon the answer…
‘F*** all for years!’ he announces.
The room erupts.
BUBBLE BURSTS
PAUL was not wrong. Highfield are not one of Irish rugby’s renowned clubs, they were junior for years until gaining senior status in the 1950s and, aside from a couple of Munster Senior Cups in the 1960s and winning the lesser regarded Munster League in 1990, trophies have been very hard to come by.
Since the AIL began 30 years ago, they have operated in the lower regions and though they have produced quality players over the years (Ultan and Donncha O’Callaghan, Brian O’Meara), their stand-out talents have consistently gravitated to bigger clubs, primarily Cork Constitution, who were able to offer greater opportunities for success and career advancement.
However, this time last year, there was massive excitement around Woodleigh Park as Highfield seemed destined to reach the top tier of the AIL for the first time. Under player-coach Timmy Ryan – the former Munster, Toulon and Newcastle prop and another who had relocated to Con as his abilities began to garner attention – they were flying, nine points clear at the top of Division 1B with elevation to Division 1A looking inevitable.
That would be a seismic move, one with the potential to completely shake up Cork rugby where Con, superbly organised and constantly evolving, have ruled the roost in the city for generations. UCC have mounted a meaningful local challenge in recent years, joining Con in the top tier and holding their own, but the transient nature of university rugby is a persistent challenge whereas Highfield, with a strong business model, committed membership and powerful community identity, had real potential to bed in and assault the established pecking order.
Then the pandemic struck and the bubble burst. The AIL was cancelled, promotion and relegation was put on hold and Ryan moved on. Now Highfield have to start again… whenever the AIL starts again.
THE BURNING RAFT
HIGHFIELD’S is the stand-out tale of ‘what might have been’ but Covid19 has wreaked widespread havoc across a club game already struggling to stay afloat and relevant in the professional era.
The AIL’s glory days of the 1990s – with packed attendances, exhaustive media coverage and internationals everywhere you looked – now mock the modern reality of a competition that has become dirt on the shoes of the franchise-driven Irish rugby model.
Funding was a massive problem pre-Covid and now, with no revenue from gate receipts or clubhouse bars, the grassroots game is on its uppers.
And there is a wider, societal issue coming to the fore with real fears for participation levels – already on the slide – taking a massive hit.
‘The main thing clubs are worried about is player falloff,’ Midleton director of rugby, Dave Ryan, told Rory Keane in these pages recently. ‘Will young people decide to play again next year? It’s worrying for every club in the country.’
That is the burning raft within Irish rugby’s ongoing issue of what to do with the club game – a conundrum that has proved impossible to solve over many years.
How does the AIL fit into the professional system? How can we have a vibrant, sustainable club game that can engage on its own merits, catering for the ‘social’ amateur player while concurrently providing a pathway into the professional game?
These are the questions that have perplexed vested parties ever since the provinces were chosen as the best vehicle for professional progression in the late 1990s.
It has been a bitter battleground. The clubs have been angered at their treatment by the provinces and union, feeling disenfranchised and disrespected by a professional system dictating the terms. Equally, there has been frustration in the professional game at perceived intransigence from the clubs, who have been viewed as unwilling to compromise as they seek to preserve a proper sense of identity and relevance.
Both positions have merit and, thus far, a workable solution has not been achieved, but it is vital that one is found and, at last, there are definite reasons for optimism.
BEACON OF HOPE
CHIEF among them is Colin McEntee, the IRFU’s director of rugby development with direct responsibility for the clubs.
Before we get into why McEntee is a beacon of hope for the club game, we need to address the issue of his predecessor, Scott Walker, who was in that role for over a decade, though you would hardly have known it.
Walker is an Australian, who had worked with UK Sport as a ‘performance programme consultant’ and had no relevant rugby experience — certainly none relevant to the Irish club game and the cultural backdrop behind the machinations of the AIL.
The clubs were known to be unimpressed in their dealings with the Australian and it is understood pressure was applied behind the scenes, with Walker eventually shunted over to the position of ‘director of strategy and technology’ in 2019.
McEntee is a different animal entirely, firmly rooted in the grassroots of Irish rugby but with an impressive record of achievement in the professional game.
A product of Naas RFC, the rangy backrower played AIL for many years with Greystones and Lansdowne whilst also representing Leinster and Ireland A. He then spent years working on bringing young players through as development officer and academy manager with Leinster, and high performance manager with the IRFU — providing him with in-depth, hands-on knowledge on player pathways into the professional game and how the clubs fit in.
In short, McEntee (right) ‘gets it’ and the feedback from clubs is extremely positive on the fact there is someone now in place who understands the needs of both professional and amateur operations.
Furthermore, while the pandemic presents obvious problems, the resultant hiatus has focused minds on the importance of coming up with a workable plan.
With McEntee in situ, the IRFU seem to have stepped up – while the initial emergency funding of €500,000 spread across all clubs was barely enough to pay electricity bills, it was backed up by an additional €4million last December – a tangible act of commitment by the IRFU towards the club game.
Suddenly, there is goodwill again and a shared desire for progress — now the task is to come up with a framework for achieving it.
BRIDGING THE GAP
THE fact that Ireland started five imported players against France last week is a shocking indictment of the system.
While the national elevation of the likes of Shane Daly (Cork Con) and Craig Casey (Shannon) energises the AIL, parachuting in the likes of James Lowe and Jamison Gibson-Park is seen as an insult.
However, there would undeniably be less need to go overseas if there was a better system in place to promote fringe homegrown players and one major obstacle is the void that exists between senior provincial sides and the AIL.
Attempts were made to fill it with the British & Irish and Celtic Cups but neither took. However, rather than look across the Irish Sea for solutions, it would serve everyone better to search within for answers, particularly in a post-Covid, belttightening environment.
There has to be a way and, having sought the opinions of a selection of club members and officials at various levels of the AIL, this is the solution as we see it…
1
Establish an internal ‘A’ competition of six teams, two from Munster, two from Leinster, one from Connacht and one from Ulster (working title of the ‘Foley Cup’ after Shannon, Munster and Ireland great, Anthony). Playing home and away games followed by a final would ensure a minimum of 10 games for everyone – offering an outlet to sub-senior provincial players, too frequently left kicking their heels, as well as AIL players with potential to move up.