It must be the sincere wish of all who care about rugby that 1999 will not be marked by the kind of attitudes and unseemly happenings that too often saw rugby make headlines for too many of the wrong reasons.

Unfortunately much of what we will remember about 1998 and what will be consigned to the history books does not and will not make for very edifying reading. And that brings us back to the attitude adopted by some, most notably the English first division clubs and those who misrule the game from the corridors of Twickenham.

What hope is there that attitudes will change and minds will open across the water in this the last year of the 20th century? Not a lot if we listen to the club owners. Who can forget the happenings of last summer. Remember the Mayfair Agreement. That must be about the most infamous and ineffectual document in the history of the game. That document was the abject surrender of the English union to the clubs. But the ink was not dry on it before it was broken.

The manner in which some of the English clubs have run their affairs is a fearful indictment on their lack of business sense and ability. Keep changing the goal posts to meet each crisis as it emerges is the philosophy over there. The words of Arthur Holmes, the former chairman of Bristol, a club that had to call in the receiver, are chilling but true.

"Once the reality dawns on some of the clubs' owners that there is no money to be made for them in professional rugby, they will be gone like greased lightning. That is the bottom line."

Those words from a man who put a million pounds of his own money into Bristol, represent just about the most realistic comments that have come from any English club owner, especially bearing in mind that the English first division clubs lost well over £20 million last year.

So what was the answer to that? First we had the proposal for an Anglo-French League, who remembers that? The French clubs did not want to know. Then the English wanted to take over the European Cup, the competition they did not enter in its inaugural year. They got rid of Cliff Brittle and no sooner was Brian Baister in place than they embarrassed him with their activities. When Brittle went, the former secretary of the English union, Tony Hallett, told us: "The lights have come on again in the game." That from the man who was centre stage in the television deal he and his union did with Sky that almost cost England a place in the Five Nations Championship.

Most recently we have had the proposals for a British league with the Celtic nations representatives firmly kept in their place in division two, apart, of course, from Cardiff and Swansea.

Then they want Tom Kiernan out of European Rugby Cup Ltd. Of course they do because he has stood up to them. I would take it as a compliment if I were Tom Kiernan. Without him, Vernon Pugh and Marcel Martin there would not have been a European Cup.

That was 1998 across the channel and it did have its knock-on effects here and of course within the European Cup context. Not that it was all sweetness and light here during the year. We had Ireland coach Brian Ashton resigning after one match in the Five Nations Championship against the background of suggestions that he and manager Pat Whelan could not work together. Ashton was less than forthcoming in his denials of that. The reality was that Brian realised he had made a mistake in taking the Irish job, that he did not understand the Irish character and erred badly in not attending AIB League matches. If he had said that at the time rather than on television subsequently, a lot of unpleasantness would have been avoided.

Then we had Pat Whelan's resignation in the aftermath of an accusation that he hit a journalist in a Limerick hostelry, an allegation Whelan has never admitted. He resigned for what he termed "family and business reasons". A few months ago we had the accusation from Neil Francis that Irish players were taking performance enhancing drugs during his time on the Ireland side, from 1988 to 1996, and also that a doctor had treated 10 Irish rugby players for drug abuse. The IRFU still awaits a response about that allegation.

Three Irish players tested positive for banned substances after matches, two were cleared. In one of the cases it was found by a tribunal there was no breach of the regulations and in the second it was not even necessary for the case to go to the tribunal as he had no case to answer. The third, an under-21 player, was severely reprimanded for inadvisedly taking a banned substance.

Meanwhile the British Sports Council took over seven months to inform the union about one of the three positive tests they encountered. The player concerned was totally exonerated. Those events were scarcely edifying during 1998. There were lessons to be absorbed in that whole episode, including by the IRFU who do, however, have a specific policy on the drugs issue, more specific than many sporting organisations.

But what of the up side? We had the return of no fewer than 12 players from England, many of them disillusioned. The IRFU restructured their contracts as the money became available from increased television revenue to contract players at provincial as well as national level and it paid a handsome dividend.

We had Keith Wood refusing to sign his Irish contract as it he said it infringed his "intellectual property rights". He wisely changed his mind. The initiative announced recently that contracted players and a team of youth development officers would go out to encourage youngsters to play the game and help them in that objective is a very wise, prudent and worthy initiative.

The performance of the season was that given by Ireland against France. Then we had the outstanding achievement of the Ireland under-19 team in winning the World Championship and the under-21 team winning the Triple Crown. The Irish Universities also won the Triple Crown. The youth team (under-18) won all three matches they played. Shannon's success in capturing the League title for a fourth successive year was a magnificent achievement. Watching Clongowes Wood College in the Leinster Schools' Cup campaign was an elevating experience and of course we have Ulster's ongoing quest for glory in the European Cup.

The year that has now passed into history was marked by the fractious, the selfish in England, the contentious and controversial in Ireland and some happenings to lift the spirit and give us a foundation on which we can build hope for the future.