IRFU: The Connacht team's timing could hardly have been better for tonight's public meeting in the Radisson SAS Hotel in Galway on the future of Irish rugby.

Victory over tournament favourites Llanelli last weekend for a Celtic Cup semi-final place and subsequent selection as European Club of the Week by eurorugby.com, a body that follows the progress of the 46 professional sides in the Six Nations, has put the province in a position of relative strength in what is seen as a hugely important meeting for the game in the west of Ireland.

The discussion is part of the Irish Rugby Football Union's (IRFU) innovation to give each of the provinces a platform for their views on what shape the game should take.

Connacht's threatened demise last season is, naturally, their particular concern in this, the final public meeting.

Hearings have already taken place in Cork, Limerick and in Ulster, while the Leinster meeting took place last night in the Burlington Hotel in Dublin.

According to the Genesis Group, who have been employed by the IRFU to oversee the project, interest has been considerable.

Up to last week the IRFU's website, where the discussion document is available for viewing, had 18,500 hits.

Given that there are around 15,000 senior players in the country the interest level is seen as encouraging.

"There is a very significant level of interest in getting a copy of the document," said Alistair Gray of Genesis.

"How that ultimately translates into submissions, we don't know. Our job has been to facilitate discussion, then to come up with recommendations about what the IRFU should do by bringing together the main points."

Given last year's public protests and Connacht's feeling of isolation as they believed that the IRFU sought to cut costs and exclude them from the professional provincial network, their interest is likely to centre around one of the options in the document, which suggests that three professional teams, or even two, is the route that the IRFU might take.

As a result the province has been encouraging people in the province through their website to apply for tickets for the meeting tonight and to make their voices heard.

Although a maximum of 400 people will be able to attend the meeting in Galway, club and school representatives, branch and IRFU officials are expected to be joined by a considerable number of ordinary members of the public with an interest in the game in the province.