Rugby:The IRFU's long-awaited review of Ireland's World Cup campaign will be presented to the union's 22-man executive committee at a specially meeting on Monday.

Although the details of the review will not be made public, it is expected the committee will deliberate its findings on Monday and it is possible the IRFU will issue a statement on foot of that the following day.

While there will be no warm-weather training in Lanzarote this Christmas, the union are conscious the Ireland squad are due to get together on December 20th and would like to put this matter to rest before then.

The union's World Cup Review Committee comprises Neilly Jackson (one of the three, with Pat Whelan and Noel Murphy, on the committee which prematurely gave Eddie O'Sullivan a four-year contract extension before the World Cup), IRFU chief executive Philip Browne, president Der Healy and the recently appointed honorary treasurer, Tom Grace.

Brian Porteous of Genesis was commissioned to conduct the review and interviewed the management staff and other key figures in the preparation of the team, and, in tandem with the Irish Rugby Union Players' Association, the Irish playing squad. It is expected he will present the findings, though this will be an oral, as distinct from a written, presentation, perhaps in a further attempt to prevent leaks.

While the review examined many aspects of the World Cup campaign, such as preparation, fitness, diet and logistics, it is believed not to have included a review of the coaching per se.

O'Sullivan and his staff will have been at pains to highlight the insufficient number of preparatory matches in the build-up to the World Cup, though any querying of the fitness training, which incorporated two trips to the ice chambers in Spala, Poland, hardly tallies with persistent claims before and during the World Cup that this was the best-prepared Irish squad ever.

Nevertheless, it is understood that while several players will accept the blame for the team's poor showing, others offered fairly sharp criticism of the coaching before and during the finals, man management, preparation, training lacking in variety during the World Cup and, over the last two years, poor planning and a selection strategy that led to little or no competition for places and ultimately resulted in Ireland using fewer players than any of the other 19 countries in the World Cup finals.

While many still believe O'Sullivan is a good coach, after 70-plus matches and five years in charge some are not enamoured of a projected 11-year reign.

Ireland finished six and nine points adrift of France and Argentina, and just four ahead of Georgia, with a points difference of -18 compared to Argentina's +110 and France's +151.

Any criticisms the back-up coaching staff may have harboured over the manifold flaws that led to such an under-par performance may have been tempered by how their four-year extensions are inextricably linked with O'Sullivan's.

In response to the anger of the 40,000 supporters who travelled to France and the hundreds of thousands who watched events unfold from home, the IRFU's silence, foot-dragging and lack of transparency in the two-and-a-half months since the tournament have been in stark contrast to the response of several other unions, who since the finals have either changed coaches, made incumbent coaches reapply or conducted more transparent reviews.

There is some speculation that a new team manager might be put in place, or a new role created to help fill the void between the Irish head coach and the provinces. The name of Ulster's Joey Miles, a former Ireland team manager, has been mentioned in dispatches.

Another hypothesis some insiders believe may come to pass is that the union's statement will vow to further review the coaching structure after the Six Nations.