Season over but cost of shutdown mounts for AIL clubs

Cork Con’s Brian Hayes make a break in an AIL clash with Young Munster last January. Club director of rugby Jerry Holland, below, said: ‘For the players, it’s such a strange way to end a season that was going so well but there’s lots of teams would have experienced that.’

When the IRFU pulled the shutters down on the AIL season last month it preserved a league pyramid with Cork Constitution at its tip and Midleton, half an hour’s drive and at the same time a world away, marooned at its base.

Though separated by 48 rungs on the ladder, their frustrations and concerns now overlap with each other and every other club around the country. This should have been the month when the league tables were decided by events on the pitch. Instead, everyone is grappling with the same withdrawal symptoms and strains as the global battle against coronavirus goes on.