It has, in many ways, been a revealing week in rugby football. Reality is beginning to dawn in relation to what is happening in many areas of the game. Better late than never.

The excessive demands on players, the huge financial deficits that some clubs across the channel now deem inevitable, the fear of bankruptcy and the need for television coverage to propagate the game have all come into focus. Then we have Harlequins, the club that chased talent from around the world and have players from eight different nations in their ranks, calling for a cap on players' pay. How the scene, the emphasis and the opinions change when the price has to be paid for expediency, as invariably it has in every walk of life.

Francois Pienaar, the South African World Cup-winning captain in 1995, now a player-coach with Saracens, is also expressing acute anxiety about money matters. Saracens is another club with a multi-national influence, having signed retired internationals from France and Australia. The club moved to Watford Soccer Club for their home matches from their Southgate home in north London. They are worried about gate receipts and revenue.

England manager Fran Cotton has stated his grave reservations about what has been happening in English rugby. He has been accused of being of the old school, a stick-in-the-mud traditionalist and his warnings have gone unheeded. He believes it is bad for English rugby that well over half the players in the first division are not eligible to play for England. He had correctly forecast the drain from Irish, Welsh and Scottish clubs and what he saw as excessive expenditure by clubs, which he said would create major problems. Who can say he was wrong in any of the sentiments he uttered?

Professionalism is a fact of life but a heavy price is being paid on many levels because of the headlong rush made to embrace it. There is a great need for much more stability in many areas. Players who play the game for a living will, understandably, seek to get the best possible deal. But for some it has proved a raw deal.

We now have players being put up for sale by their clubs without even being consulted, in an effort to reduce costs. One of those players has gone on record, saying he bitterly regrets having given up his job. Reality can inflict a very hard and cold slap. There is now, too, a realisation that the free market in players brings its problems quite apart from the dangers of making a shambles of competitive balance. Not nearly enough attention was paid to the downside by some players. But it may all have a beneficial effect for Irish rugby. It may make players think twice before moving to England and induce some to return home.

Meanwhile, we could have the reopening of old wounds in the battle between Cliff Brittle, the chairman of the management board of the English Rugby Union (RFU) and the former secretary of the RFU, Tony Hallett. Brittle won the backing of the majority at the annual general meeting of the RFU for the crucial role of chairman of the management committee at Twickenham Shortly afterwards, Hallet, with a smile and a "promise" not to criticise former colleagues, resigned and got the golden handshake.

Hallett, a central figure in negotiating the clandestine deal to give Sky television exclusive rights to televise England's home matches, including the Five Nations Championship games, is again attempting to justify that action. Brittle, to his credit, had strong views on that and was not afraid to express them. The RFU attempted to sell what was not their property and were threatened with expulsion from the championship. Hallett now says that Ireland, Wales, Scotland and France engaged in a game of bluff and that the RFU had not the backbone to face down the other countries. He could have fooled a lot of people - the alternative championship programme was in place had England not backed down.

Hallett avoided on crucial factor - the need to propagate the game and the very limited number of viewers on satellite television. One of the best pieces of rugby news of recent times is that RTE has agreed a deal for the live television transmission of so much rugby in the coming months, including the internationals and Five Nations championship. England's home matches are, of course, excluded as they are the exclusive preserve of Sky.

Television is a crucial factor in propagating not alone rugby, but so many other sports. It has certainly played a major part in helping the spread of rugby in Ireland.

The expansion in the television coverage allied to the abolition of the GAA's ban on `foreign games' brought a great many players into the game and fostered an interest in it. It was television which enabled rugby to be seen in the homes of countless thousands who had not seen the game played. Every sport recognises the immense value of television, thus the clamour by organisations to have their sports televised.

Sky's exclusive rights to English club rugby has come back to haunt the clubs, who now realise the great value of terrestrial transmission.

There were some very interesting and revealing statistics produced recently in relation to the numbers who watch rugby on Sky. So anxious are the English clubs to get exposure on terrestrial television that they are now preparing a deal with Channel Five to have a rugby programme on Sunday evening. They must, however, pay for the exposure by defraying the programme's production costs. Mr Hallet's comments on that would be interesting.

So would his observations on the fact that the television audience on Sky for the Tri-Nations match in August between South Africa and Australia came to 27,000, a pathetic figure. But things get worse and more interesting. The Heineken Cup match between English Cup holders Leicester, who last season reached the final of the European Cup, against the 1995 European champions Toulouse came to 114,000. Fewer than 100,000 watched the cup match between Brive, the reigning champions, and Pontypridd.

The audience figures for the South Africa-Lions Test series did not even reach two million. That is very much more a pity than a mystery.

In conclusion the announcement that Ireland and Lions hooker Keith Wood has been advised to take a rest from the game and have blood tests is not in the least surprising, however much everyone will hope that Keith will be fit and ready for Ireland's match against the All Blacks on November 15th. It raises the question about the demands being put on players and the whole fixture structure. Those matters will be examined next week.

Great anxiety has been expressed on all these issues by national coaches, including both Ireland's Brian Ashton and New Zealand's John Hart. One understands their concern. Significantly, Cliff Brittle has also revealed his worry on this issue. It is well founded.