Citing financial gap an easy excuse, claims Eoin Reddan

Eoin Reddan insists the provinces cannot afford to dwell on the growing financial gap between the Celtic clubs and their French and English counterparts as both Leinster and Munster come to terms with their discouraging European situations.

Reddan’s Leinster are already eliminated from the Champions Cup quarter-final race with two rounds to go having failed to win any of their first four games in Pool 5, while Munster’s hopes hang by the thinnest of threads after their back-to-back defeats to Leicester Tigers.

The scrum-half has always been an interesting interviewee when it comes to the bigger picture in rugby. His stint playing in England with Wasps has probably aided in that, but he preferred to focus instead yesterday on issues within his side’s control. The concession of 30 penalties in their two games against champions Toulon did more than anything to condemn them to the bottom of their pool before Christmas, though it was put to him that the chasm in finances was hardly something that can be ignored either.

“It’s still not the same as you can’t do it or you shouldn’t do it, you know what I mean? I understand that the point has to be made externally. People say what they see. Also, there’s a lot of rule of thumb going on and quick decisions on things. When we were doing well in the Heineken Cup a few years ago everyone was coming up with all the other reasons (why) we were playing well: that we could target the tournament, that (the Ireland players) didn’t have to play week in, week out.

“Now, you’re playing against a Toulon team who are probably playing more together than we have in the last few weeks. They’ve less internationals, they play together a lot. Now people are saying: ‘No, no, no...,’ it’s because they play a lot. People just make arguments to suit results a lot of the time, whereas you go in and look at the video and say: ‘Okay, we gave away twice as many penalties in the second-half as we did the first’, let’s sort that out before we start wondering who’s getting paid what. You know?”

With Munster and Leinster meeting at Thomond Park Sunday, one of the pair will endure a hangover stretching into the new year and the news for Leinster regarding the availability of players is mostly positive this week.

The main concern is tighthead prop Mike Ross who suffered a significant hamstring strain. That leaves him facing six weeks on the sidelines and scrambling to be fit for Ireland’s first Six Nations outing, against Wales, which is seven weeks away. Other than that, Ben Te’o is going through return-to-play protocols after the concussion he suffered against Toulon on Saturday while Jonathan Sexton should be good to go for Limerick despite a quad injury which will rule him out of training until later in the week.

Sean O’Brien may also play a part for the first time since being concussed against Wasps in the first round of Europe last month. The inner ear issue which complicated his recovery has now cleared up and the hope is that Cian Healy’s situation will be as well today. Leinster’s appeal of his proposed two-week ban is to be heard tomorrow — probably by Skype — but the best news of all may be that Leinster have not received any IRFU requests for players to be rested ahead of the Munster encounter, or the New Year’s Day visit to the RDS of Connacht.

The provincial derbies have assumed added significance in terms of how Leinster can sell itself — to supporters, sponsors and prospective signings — now that they find themselves focusing on PRO12 matters for the duration of the campaign. The financial hit isn’t immediately huge.

A home Champions Cup quarter-final would have brought in at least 600,000 more to the coffers. A less tangible hit is the prestige to the club and the pitch that team manager Guy Easterby can make to foreign players. “You would hope that people wouldn’t just judge it on a one-off season,” said Easterby. “You would hope that anyone you were hoping to attract wouldn’t look at your record purely on a one-season basis.”