FORMER LEINSTER HOOKER Shane Byrne believes the International Rugby Board needs to step to settle the ongoing dispute over the future of European rugby.
Sides from the English Premiership and French Top 14 have claimed they will take part in an alternative to the Heineken Cup after their demands to the ERC were not settled. The clubs want qualification for an elite European to be based on merits [league standings] and for a greater cut from the money pot.
The Irish, Welsh and Scottish unions have all released statements saying their clubs would not take part in any breakaway competition. IRB chief executive Brett Gosper chimed in back in September. He said he did not believe in an Anglo-French competition. “We urge all of those parties to get together and find some common ground,” he added.
Byrne, who featured in the Heineken Cup for Leinster and Saracens, believes the competition, as rugby supporters know it, may return in 2015 after a season-long hiatus.
He told TheScore.ie: “I believe that the English and French sides will get their way in terms of it becoming an elite competition. It may well be the top six sides from each of the three main leagues.”
Byrne added, “PR-wise, the ERC has played it very badly. The sent out a message when the talks broke down, a few weeks back, and said they would meet again in six weeks. Why wait so long? All that has happened has been more weeks of mud-slinging in the press and parties becoming entrenched.”
The former Ireland international believes the Celtic nations [Ireland, Wales and Scotland] must ‘stick to their guns’ in the face of the Rugby Champions Cup breakaway threat. If the IRB is backing a pan-European competition, he adds, they should prove it with actions rather than words. He said:
They should say to the unions ‘If you are determined to play in competitions that are not IRB-sanctioned, you don’t play in the Six Nations’.”
Byrne added, “Every competition should have a developmental side to it. I can see the Anglo-French argument that Pro12 sides are virtually guaranteed a spot in the Heineken Cup and I think that will change. The solution could be to make the Amlin Cup a stiffer challenge with a greater reward for the winner.”
