Lam’s Wild West fairytale is poised to cause major headache for IRFU
Western rise causing IRFU headaches
IT WAS surreal hearing Conor Murray talk the other day in Limerick about the ebb and flow of Munster’s inconsistent PRO12 campaign. The scrum-half has appeared just twice in his province’s 18 matches, unavailability caused by his exhaustive 15 Test outings with Ireland due to the World Cup and Six Nations championship.
Yet there he was, graphically describing their tally of seven defeats as ‘ frustrating’ and using attention-grabbing words such as ‘massive’ and ‘huge’ to highlight the importance of their end-of-season run-in now the calendar is poised to flip over to April, the second last month of the domestic season.
It was emotive patter illustrative of how Irish rugby exists in changed times.
Gone is the lackadaisical era where unions like the IRFU simply nominated its qualifiers for the old ERC-run Heineken Cup, a situation that ensured Munster, Leinster and Ulster were guaranteed participation regardless of anything good, bad or indifferent achieved in the league.
Unless you were challenging for the title, domestic form didn’t matter a jot and provinces reacted accordingly, seldom fielding full strength under orders from the IRFU.
Now, though, with EPCR’s new Champions Cup only taking in teams according to how they finish in the PRO12, the tournament’s seriousness has ramped up to such an enormous extent that Munster or Ulster, currently occupying fourth and fifth places respectively, could disastrously fall to seventh by close of business on May 7 and wind up not qualifying for next season’s elite European tournament for the first time ever.
It’s a damning fate that chastened Ospreys are already coming to terms with, a run of 13 consecutive invitations to dine at Europe’s top table shattered by terrible league form — nine defeats — that has left them tailed off in ninth place.
This demise of Wales’ premier outfit isn’t lost on Murray, fully aware Munster are vulnerable to slipping down the ladder to a similar doomsday conclusion if results aren’t secured, starting at Leinster on Saturday.
‘It hasn’t been spoken but we are all smart enough to know — and we all want to play in the best competition. I don’t think you need to ask players. Everyone is aware of where we stand and what we need to do… we’re under no illusions, we need to perform for the rest of the season to look forward next season.’
Such high stakes are garnering PRO12 a profile it didn’t usually get. Normally, it wouldn’t be until after the European quarter-finals when the league dominated Irish rugby headlines.
However, with the country failing to get a side through to the lasteight of Europe’s elite tournament for the first time since 1998, the league became front of house last weekend, Connacht’s latest win over Leinster in Galway capturing the Easter imagination.
It was the fifth time in eight seasons that the unfashionable westerners had done a Galway number on their east coast rivals. But while previous successes were really oneoffs in the whole scheme of an entire league, last Saturday was massively significant as it left Connacht four points clear at the top with four rounds remaining, a development that should cause anxiety at IRFU HQ.
When the union decided in December 2010 to pump additional finance into the weak westerners whose existence they threatened in 2003, the investment, further backed by an additional €1million in May 2014 on top of their regular annual budget, was designed to only help make the province become more competitive, not generate the situation where Connacht’s Champions Cup qualification is at the expense of another province.
Given the expectation is f or defending champions Glasgow, who have three matches against hapless Italian opposition left, to move up the table from sixth into the playoff spots, seventh place Edinburgh would cause the IRFU a major headache if they also rally.
Lansdowne Road’s financial outlay on Munster, Ulster and Leinster is much greater by a multiple of millions than what is spent on Connacht and failure by the big three to all make it into the Champions Cup won’t help the books to balance.
That is why the top seven’s fixture list, starting tomorrow with Ulster hosting Connacht and Edinburgh welcoming Zebre, is laced with intrigue with nerves sure to be shredded by the schedule of four Irish derbies, two Welsh derbies and five other head-to-head top table clashes before the curtain falls in five weeks’ time.
Leaders Connacht are confident they can stay where they are despite their out-half injury crisis, Pat Lam insisting the sum of their parts has always been greater than any one individual. So too second place Leinster, Leo Cullen shrugging aside two consecutive away losses with the reminder that three of their remaining four are at home.
Securing home semi-finals and a shot at winning the title is the leading duo’s target, but the jittery other two want a say in that and won’t willingly settle for derby crumbs tomorrow and Saturday.
Massive games. Potentially massive consequences.