United front as senior clubs unveil plans to revive All-Ireland League

SHOWING a united front, Ireland’s senior clubs have banded together in a bid to rescue the All-Ireland League from anonymity.

For the first time, all of the divisional clubs have pieced together a programme that they believe will revitalise the competition from next season on. The key elements to sustaining the competition hinge on approval from the Irish Rugby Football Union, but the clubs are confident that proposals put forward will be accepted.

The clubs’ proposals are to create three divisions of 16 teams, to be broken up into two groups of eight teams playing home and away. The semi-final play-offs will also be played on a home and away basis.

Other proposals are:

The top two Clubs in Division 2 will be promoted.

The top Club in Division 3 will be promoted, while the bottom team in Division 2 will play a home and away play-off with the second team in Division 3 for a place in Division 2.

The team that finishes last in Division 3 will be relegated.

In all home and away play-offs, in 2004/05 and going forward, the higher ranked team will have the advantage of choosing to play the home or away leg first and will be declared the winners in the event of a draw.

The two groups in each division will be selected based on the finishing positions in the previous season. The odd numbers (1,3,5 etc) will play in Group A and the even numbers (2,4,6 etc) in Group B. In the event of the resulting groups not having a satisfactory spread, alterations can be agreed by the majority of clubs. The promoted teams will slot in at the bottom of the higher division at 15 and 16 based on their pre-play-off finishing positions. The relegated teams will slot into positions 1 and 2 of the lower division on the same basis. For subsequent years the finishing positions of the two groups will be put together into one table, as a paper exercise, to determine the new groups. Recently, the 48 Senior Rugby Clubs successfully come together to form the All-Ireland Senior Rugby Clubs Association (AISRCA). An executive was been elected to represent all three divisions of the AIB League and the executive has been active over the summer months working on the issues affecting its members.

The Association confirmed the rejection by the Clubs of the IRFU’s draft plans for the future of the domestic game. It put forward its own proposals for the new AIB All-Ireland League commencing in the 2005/06 season together with an All-Ireland Cup competition, starting in January this season.

The executive met with the IRFU to present their proposals, which were well received, and are expecting a positive decision in the coming weeks.

The Association’s Chairman, Wally Morrissey, said: “The policy of taking funds out of the club game to finance the increasing cost of the Professional game is not in the interest of Irish Rugby going forward.

“The senior clubs are in good shape and have a lot to contribute to the development of the game but cannot accept the position that they are left with the scrapings of the IRFU financial pot after all other interests have been satisfied.”

Meanwhile, the UL Bohs team to face Old Crescent in the first round of the Limerick Charity Cup shows few changes from that which represented the club in last year’s All-Ireland League.

The Munster squad players are all available, with prop Jody Danagher the only member to have moved clubs. Some slight knocks picked up in training have sidelined a number of players, including hooker Gordon Ryan, prop Brian Murphy and new recruit Daithi Fitzgerald.

UL/BOHS: C. Garvey, M. McPhail, C. Finn, K. Matthews, B. Murphy, I. Costello, A. Rees, M. Harty, B. Prenderville, K. Flanagan, B. Madigan, A. Hartigan, P. van Esbeck, J. O’Neill, J. E. O’Connor.

Cork Constitution Youths section opens for business tomorrow (Saturday) at 10.a.m.

Training begins for those aged between seven and 18 and new members are welcome.