Youth in need of greater support

Geordan Murphy (Leicester) and Emmet Farrell (West Hartlepool) will not be considered for the Ireland under-21 team this season simply because they quit these shores to pursue a rugby career in England: the IRFU do not approve and indeed actively discourage any such tendencies among the younger generation.

The official line from the union is that neither Murphy nor Farrell played for the Exiles in the under-21 interprovincial series, therefore precluding selection for the national side. The IRFU are loathe to set aside finance to monitor the progress of individuals outside the accepted structure.

The excuse lacks substance, disintegrating with even a cursory examination of the facts. Farrell played for the Ireland under-21 team last season before eventually been dropped: the union are aware of his prowess.

Given that the IRFU are prepared to send John and Barry O'Driscoll to evaluate the merits of South Africans, New Zealanders and Englishmen with Irish passports, it would hardly be stretching the budget to demand a detailed report on the progress of Murphy, a 19-year-old Naasborn, Newbridge-educated full-back.

The IRFU's intransigence is a most worrying aspect, as are the dual standards when one invokes a comparison with the education drain in Ulster. Demographics have highlighted the trend whereby young Ulster men and women seek third-level education in England, Scotland and Wales.

The haemorrhaging of the young population includes a sizeable proportion of the talent available to Ulster rugby at post-schools level. It is therefore no surprise that Ulster struggle at under20 level and by extension that club rugby in the province is denied strength in depth, primarily attributable to the exodus.

The IRFU's stance has been reactive rather than proactive in this regard. The irony of their position of non-intervention in Ulster, largely, to an active role in discouraging others from venturing across channel, is difficult to reconcile.

One can understand why they wish to stem the flow of young talent to England and that in itself is laudable but only if the package that they are prepared to offer those who remain can match or improve upon that available elsewhere.

The carrot with which the IRFU entice promising young players is a place on the Foundation squad. Those who make the grade receive expert tuition, care and attention and a modicum of financial support. If an individual is doubly fortunate and wishes to pursue a university career, he may win a scholarship at UCD's Rugby Academy.

This season the university awarded 14 scholarships and those players, some of whom are on foundation squads, will be developed over a three-year period. The priority of the academy is to produce the finished article in rugby terms after three years to be released back into the domestic system.

UCD's is a totally separate entity from the IRFU's Foundation programme and in many ways is more amenable to the development of players. UCD keep the players together, playing a certain style of rugby, together, surrounded by players of similar ability.

The Foundation system, while offering technical and practical assistance, does not take the player out of a club environment: they have no control over the demands made on him in playing terms. An individual may be on the first team at a club or he may play for the under-19s or under20s. His progress in some ways is governed by the weakest links in a team, or the pattern to which a particular coach operates.

Therefore a player's progress can be directly linked to the club structure itself, whether at All-Ireland League or under-age level. The current Division One format is top heavy numerically and not of the requisite standard to facilitate the progress of players to national representation.

One is therefore denying an individual the incentive to stay in Ireland for purely playing purposes. The need for a more streamlined club structure with no more than eight teams playing home and away should become a viable alternative. It should ensure that the young talent is condensed rather than diluted, offering a substantially more attractive club game.

The obvious ancillary gesture from the IRFU would be to ensure that the financial rewards were suitably lucrative, in essence diminishing the lure of the English pound. Ireland must breed its own professional elite and there is no point in establishing the groundwork only to become parsimonious. The old adage that you pay for what you get is particularly relevant in rugby spheres.

The IRFU's decision to support the provincial structure as the stepping stone to the international rugby should reflect in the recently approved expansion on the number of players contracted to the provinces, a commitment to youth.

Provision should be made for the top five under-age players, as decided by the provincial coaches in consultation with the appropriate personnel, to be contracted, thereby producing an incentive. It would offer a tangible reward, a goal to which to aspire and accelerate the development of young, talented players.

It will be interesting to note the number of players that graduate from the national under-21 set-up this year to provincial squads for the start of next season; it is also an obvious way to monitor the effectiveness of the Foundation system.

It would be churlish not to acknowledge the work that the IRFU has undertaken at under-age level and the success that has been achieved in the past at schools, youths and under-21 levels. But professionalism has once again shifted the goal-posts and the necessity for an immediate response from the union is imperative.

Murphy and Farrell should not have to go to England either to seek out a better standard of rugby nor to achieve the requisite financial rewards. Irish rugby should be able to offer the total package; that it does not is an indictment of the present system.

Those individuals should not therefore be penalised or discriminated against in terms of national representation. The IRFU is emitting the wrong kind of message. When they are able, and willing to, match the alternatives available to young players, only then should they display a preference for those who support rugby in Ireland.

The union will never completely curb the fascination with the bright lights of London and places of that ilk but with a better appreciation and a more realistic appraisal of the current professional climate, the distractions for young players will be less obvious.