The IRFU have denied advising the GAA against professionalism but have confirmed that a meeting took place on the issue. It was also denied that professionalism has destroyed rugby in this country.

The claims arose from an interview, published yesterday in the Examiner, with former GAA president Peter Quinn, chairperson of the Strategic Review Committee whose recent report recommended no change in the association's amateur status provisions.

The central thrust of the reported comments was that professionalism had been an unhappy experience for rugby. "Whatever you do, don't go professional," was the quoted advice from a former rugby international. "We had already talked to senior officials of the IRFU," continued Quinn, "who had given us this message."

Philip Browne, secretary of the IRFU, said yesterday that there had been a meeting between a "high-ranking" rugby official and the GAA but that it had not amounted to advice. "About four years ago there was an approach from the GAA to give them our experience of professionalism up to that time. There was a meeting of an informal nature and covered how we were dealing with players and structures. But it wasn't a case of advising the GAA one way or the other. The situation in terms of the GAA and rugby is very different."

The time-frame outlined by Browne makes it unlikely that the meeting was part of Quinn's fact-finding for the SRC report, given that the committee was constituted less than two years ago. It would, however, be roughly consistent with the deliberations of the GAA's Amateur Status Committee, also chaired by Quinn.

That committee's report was published on November 1st, 1997 and states at page 48, 4.7: "Consultations with representatives of field-game organisations, which have already had experience of dealing with these issues, indicated that the GAA is in a totally different position to those other sports bodies, which have adopted professionalism or semi-professionalism." Peter Quinn himself was unavailable yesterday for further comment on the matter.

Professionalism was introduced into rugby suddenly after an International Board meeting in August 1995 only months after the IRFU had reiterated its traditional stance in favour of amateurism.

"At the time," according to Browne, "it would have been preferred if going professional had been implemented in a more controlled fashion. But the International Board decided - under pressure from entrepreneurs and speculators in the Southern Hemisphere - that it had no choice but to take the decision. We in turn had no choice but to move with international developments or end up as a backwater."

Nonetheless the IRFU dispute the claim that professionalism has "destroyed rugby in this country".

"There are many different views on this," says Browne, "but in terms of the game professionalism has been a success. There have been cries from those with a traditionalist background but I think we are happy with the current situation. Two of the tiers in the game - provincial and international - are firing if not on all 16 cylinders, then on 12 or 14 of them.

"We have been told the club game is in crisis but tell that to the clubs in Clonakilty, Navan, Ashbourne or Carlow. It is true that clubs in metropolitan areas where rugby has been traditionally strong have problems but they're not all the result of professionalism."

There is a bit of an irony in the spectacle of the GAA concurring with the conservative elements in rugby on the question of amateurism. Only a week ago hackles were raised when the Minister for Finance said that the GAA would benefit from emulating rugby's "lateral thinking". And certainly it's hard to come up with anything more lateral than following the precepts of rugby conservatives, which were outmoded even seven years ago.

It is correct to point out that the environment for both sports differs on the question of professionalism in a number of vital respects. But just as the rugby authorities benefit from the international marketplace in terms of broadcasting revenues and general marketing, Gaelic games would benefit by not being subject to the inflationary pressures created by global trafficking in players.

Looking at rugby from an observer's perspective it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the game is more vibrant than seven years ago and certainly more of a threat to Gaelic games. For a start, rugby has never had such a high profile with widespread interest in the provinces' European campaigns as well as the perennial international schedule.

The likelihood of part-time earnings proving a lure for footballers switching to rugby was mentioned on these pages after the game went open in 1995 and nothing in the interim has altered that.

Rugby is also reaching out beyond its traditional constituency with coaching and games development programmes. "Playing numbers in traditional clubs may be down," according to Browne, "but there are increased numbers at youth level and in rural areas."

Peter Quinn acknowledges that the cost of amateurism will be losing players but on a "very simple cost benefit basis" that would be a smaller price to pay than that involved in embracing semi-professionalism. Whereas the former president's finance credentials put his arguments beyond the reach of casual rebuttal, he may have overestimated the general impact on rugby of abandoning amateurism.

There is anecdotal evidence that the game's voluntary sector has become in certain cases disillusioned by the payment of some participants and not others. But there is equal evidence that the voluntary sector in all sports is shrinking and the GAA has noticed this particularly at schools' level.

Economic prosperity and a wider range of leisure options have taken a toll on all organised sport and particularly, given its socio-economic origins, on rugby. The IRFU's response has been to try to expand its base. It would be ironic if the GAA's capacity to meet this challenge were to be undermined by adhering to a vision that rugby has - with growing success - renounced.