If nothing else, the IRFU Committee's decision to present an inherently flawed format for the club game has served to concentrate minds. It may even force the vast bulk of the 48 clubs into a rare outbreak of unanimity.

The IRFU are keen to show some leadership on the vexed issue of the club game, and history has taught them that very often they've had to save the clubs from themselves.

They could undoubtedly substantiate their claims that the club game as a rule has overstretched itself financially. But surely it is also their duty to come up with something better - not worse.

Let's take the revamped provincial leagues which already has the imprimatur of the Ulster and Leinster Branches - no doubt excited by their re-empowerment, even though none of the four have come up with formulas yet.

Ulster's 11 senior clubs fit snugly into a 10-week time-frame, but how will Leinster come up with a formula that divides 18 teams into, say, four qualifiers for Division One, eight for Division Two and six for Division Three? Or Munster with a format for dividing 14 teams into four, seven and three?

Bizarrely, none of this has been thought through.

Eddie Wigglesworth, the IRFU's director of rugby, has said that the provincial leagues can either be graded or not. But if they are graded into stronger and weaker sections, that will close the door on half the provinces' clubs straight away.

And if they don't, the mismatches between first and third division clubs in the provincial leagues of recent times will continue.

It was ironic that the Ulster Branch's eagerness to dutifully sanction the IRFU Committee's new format came scarcely a week after Belfast Harlequins had beaten Portadown 78-7, and Ballymena had beaten City of Derry 53-26, in the Ulster Senior Cup quarter-finals.

One of Wigglesworth's most debatable claims is that, much like mushrooms in the right climactic conditions, such mismatches will no longer occur to the same extent.

But such mismatches will, as the Shannon coach Geoff Moylan says, "be of no benefit to either club, or to the aspiring provincial players or provincial coaches looking at players for their squads." Under this format, Moylan envisages a scenario where only schools' players will be fast-tracked into the professional tier.

There will be nothing for prospective versions of Paul O'Connell, Shane Horgan and John Hayes to play for. The proposed format, beginning in early September, will actually increase the strain on amateur players, for it will mean earlier starts to pre-season.

"And at that time of year, clubs will have more access to their professionals and provincial leagues will increase the risk of a serious injury when professional players come up against third division players," warns Moylan.

We are told that 24 of the 48 AIL coaches are foreign and that, under their climactically improved conditions, indigenous coaches will sprout up like never before.

The thinking behind this seems to be that, with little or nothing to play for, the clubs won't be bothered spending money on foreign coaches, and so will readily turn to cheaper, home-grown produce. Hmm.

"Coaching what? Junior teams?" says Moylan, who presumably is a prime example of what the IRFU think-tank is looking for. "I can tell you that I don't see any future in going back to coaching Munster Senior League rugby. I can't see any coaches with ambitions being enticed by this."

And what of an AIL with no promotion and relegation for the clubs themselves, per se? Instead, they will be merely losing or gaining places in each division for their provinces, and perhaps win a pennant or a medal. Sorry, but that just ain't going to do it for them.

And what is going to happen when teams within reach of the top four play-offs come up against teams near the bottom of Division One with nothing to play for and under no threat of relegation? More mismatches.

A hypothetical example: Ballymena win Division One and Dungannon finish 12th, thereby costing Ulster one of their three slots in top flight, but by finishing in the top two of the Ulster Senior League the next season, Dungannon could earn themselves another crack at Division One while possibly relegating Ballymena to Division Two. This is daft.

And it goes on. DLSP could finish top of Division Two, thereby earning Leinster an additional place in the top flight, but depending on next season's Leinster Senior League could earn that place for a team which finished below them in the AIL.

Understandably, saving money is one of the union's stated aims, yet when asked how much money they estimate this format could save them, merely answer "marginal", instead outlining their belief that this will somehow save the clubs from themselves.

But the clubs state that, with no idea where they're going to be from one year to the next, this will make fund-raising and attracting sponsorship all the more difficult.

A statement by the IRFU chief executive Philip Browne yesterday restated the union's desire for long-term thinking by the clubs with regard to more than just the senior club game and beyond their own self-interest.

But Wigglesworth has dropped broader hints that the union may listen to the clubs if they come up with a uniformed stance and something more far-reaching than an appeal for the retention of the status quo.

A possible new format would be a 12-team first division, with relegation, as what Donal Lenihan calls the imperative "half-way house" between the representative and amateur games.

This in turn could be supported by a 12-team second division and perhaps then a regionalised third division as opposed to the backwater that is provincial leagues, with promotion continuing from the junior ranks. Ironically, this is more or less what the IRFU had a decade ago.

Ultimately, the union has a duty to listen to its constituents and, in many respects, surely nobody knows the club game better than the clubs themselves?