Gerry Thornley On Rugby: Remember the good old days, when the Welsh sides couldn't buy a win over the Irish provinces in Euro or Celtic matches? Leinster won the Celtic League in its inaugural year, Munster the next. Oh, how we laughed. In fact, it wasn't that long ago at all, last season and the season before to be precise.
How the worm has turned. Now it's the Irish provinces struggling to buy a victory, with Leinster shipping a half-century in Llanelli and an under-strength, under-interested Munster leaking 60 to Cardiff.
In the last eight Irish-Welsh face-offs in the Celtic League dating back to Ulster's 28-0 win away to the Celtic Warriors on March 12th (a display that looks even better now), the Irish provinces have had just one win, courtesy of Connacht's 24-21 victory at home to the Ospreys.
In the interim, Connacht did also manage a 33-33 draw away to Llanelli, but neither of the supposed "big two" of Munster and Leinster have beaten a Welsh side in the Celtic League since the last weekend of November, over five months ago.
It's hardly surprising, of course, given Munster and Leinster took the hits in a World Cup year. Hence, Munster have used 52 players in their 20 Celtic League matches, and Leinster 53, and all this at a time when they are begging for an increase on their allocation of 33 full-time players.
Part of the rationale of the IRFU powerbrokers for casting Connacht adrift was that Irish rugby hadn't the playing base to sustain four provincial teams, yet in reality there are now five or even six, given Munster and Leinster have been obliged to field almost two separate squads.
Ronan O'Gara, Peter Stringer and Paul O'Connell have played only two Celtic League matches this season (which is one more than John Hayes and one fewer than Anthony Foley). Brian O'Driscoll hasn't once played in Donnybrook.
Munster and Leinster argue that players are being dangerously over-exposed, while Leinster have been compelled to use nine props.
The drain on the clubs' playing base doesn't have them jumping up and down either - not with glee anyhow. What's more, as we saw last weekend and will again this weekend when Cork Constitution and Shannon (who have backboned Munster in the professional era) meet at Lansdowne Road on what is supposed to be a blue riband day for the club game, they hardly get even a token day in the sun any more. Once left sucking the hind tit of the season, as Gerry Murphy put it, now they have to make do with their thumbs.
The sheer volume of matches has meant a week-by-week existence, especially for Leinster and Munster, with constantly changing team personnel in which amateurs are thrown in against professionals and there is little time for skills development, coaching or fitness work.
All of this was forewarned by the provinces, who were dead against this season's expanded 22-game Celtic League format and have made continuing representations recently restating their opposition. No doubt the clubs, were they asked, would be even more steadfastly opposed to it.
A 22-game format had never been an aspiration of the IRFU, and until it came into being for a two-year trial run they were supposedly against it. So what did the IRFU do? Last week the Celtic League board met in Dublin and rubberstamped the 22-game format (while giving the Celtic Cup an end-of-season play-off makeover), extending the "trial" into a third season.
John Hussey, one of the IRFU representatives who also chaired last week's board meeting, stresses that there were a number of factors in this decision, such as making the league a more settled and viable looking proposition for a prospective sponsor (fourth time lucky then).
It's also felt that the initial 11-game format provides insufficient matches for Ireland's professional playing pool. But, with 12 teams, arriving at an idyllic 14 to 16-game campaign is hard to achieve, whereas a 22-game league satisfies the Welsh need for a minimum of 14 home games (including European matches) per season.
Keeping the Welsh happy serves to maintain the off-pitch Celtic alliance, while the Welsh also have another two years of their deal with BBC Wales to run, and their Celtic brothers get a small slice of that cake. (Though why was a three-year deal with BBC Wales agreed?)
What this season underlines is that Welsh rugby has both a bigger player base and a bigger supporter base. Their five, new composite sides have similarly sized squads to the Irish provinces, but they can dip into a 16-team Welsh Premiership which is semi-professional.
How long Wales can sustain this investment amid the debilitating repayments on the Millennium Stadium is a moot point, but, undoubtedly, the carrot (and the stick) of determining European Cup places by final standings in the Celtic League has given the Welsh quintet much more to play for.
With the IRFU preferring to keep Connacht at bay, that is not going to change over the next two years, and while next season won't be a World Cup year, the 10-week pre-season afforded Ireland's frontline players will again intensify the early season load on the next strata of professional players - who are being flogged more than anybody.
Hussey and others argue that England's Premiership is also a 22-game format, a pertinent example given the recent Munster-Wasps European Cup semi-final. But Wasps not only have a bigger budget, they also take fewer hits on the international front and, in any case, they have a contracted playing squad of 44.
Supplementing Test rugby, the ideal scenario for Irish rugby would have been six to nine European Cup weekends, and about 14 to 16 Celtic League matches at most, with a beefed-up AIL topped off by a 12-team Premier Division as a stepping stone to the provinces.
Viewed in that light, last week's announcement, effectively inflicting this unwanted 22-game format for another two years, simply looks like bad news all round for Irish rugby.
gthornley@irish-times.ie
