FOREIGN PLAYER GUIDELINES:CONFUSION HAS become the dominant reaction to the IRFU's plan to curtail the number of non-Irish eligible players in Munster, Ulster and Leinster from the 2013-14 season onwards.

The provinces do not yet know any details about the selection process, or how non-Irish eligible players will be allocated to teams. They do not know if the IRFU will introduce a draft system for the 15 players/positions available or whether the governing body will become involved in the allocation of contracts.

In addition there are non-Irish eligible players already in the provinces who have contracts running into the 2014 season. According to the new policy, for any given position involving a contracted non-Irish eligible player for the season 2013-14 and onwards, a province will not be allowed to renew the contract or bring a non eligible player into that position.

So, what is going to happen to the players with contracts?

“It’s actually a very interesting question because there’s quite a few players who are contracted through to 2014,” said Leinster team manager Guy Easterby. “Certainly there is more than one player in one particular province [contracted] through to 2014.

“I’ve got no idea how they intend to work who gets the casting vote, who gets to make the decisions. That’s one of the things we didn’t get a chance to discuss. It would have been something we would have brought up if we’d been involved in some sort of meaningful discussion.”

It was suggested that the draft system as used in American Football might be employed. To encourage parity, teams that do poorly in the previous season usually get to choose first.

“There’s been no talk of how it would work,” added Easterby.

But someone has to get first pick if there’s only 15 players/positions to chose from? “That’s true. If that’s the way they are going to go about it someone has to get the first pick. I guess the best way to do it is draw [the provinces] out of a hat and see who comes out first second or third.

“As I say there’s more than one province that has players contracted through to 2014 that are not Irish qualified so I don’t understand how the process even begins.

“We never got an option to discuss this. The point just raised is one we would have discussed seriously because it is an issue. If there is going to be conjecture over a position and two or three provinces want the same position, who is making the decision?”

The former Irish scrumhalf reiterated that the principle of keeping the Irish team strong was important to all three provincial teams and was broadly supported. But he feels that Ireland’s defeat by Wales in the knock-out stages of this year’s World Cup may have spooked the union into acting faster than they might have had Ireland progressed further in the competition.

“We want the Irish team to be strong. That has always been the case,” he said. “You ask any player . . . if the provinces are successful it definitely has a knock-on effect on the national team.

“Okay we lost a game to Wales in a World Cup quarter-final. Would this have happened if we’d won that game against Wales? We don’t know the answer to that but my guess is certainly it wouldn’t have come so quickly down the line.”

For now it’s wait and see what the IRFU have in mind. Clarity seems some distance away as the provinces now fret over who will get the first shot for the available tighthead prop in the 2013/14 season. As Easterby contends, the three top Irish teams may or may not like certain decisions taken by the IRFU but they always suck them up and move on.

This time they don’t fully understand what they are being asked to consume.

“At the moment we are on five plus one [five non-Irish eligible players and one player who will be naturalised via residency] and we have obviously had discussions about four plus one, and we have accepted that. The problem we have is that all these other parameters have been brought in around the four plus one.

“It is not as though we can go out and sign who we want, it is our plus one with all these add-ons, and they were add-ons that weren’t discussed with us.

“I think that is the frustrating thing. When you are negotiating with someone there is always a position that one side takes and a position the other side takes and you talk about it and some things you feel good about and some things you don’t feel good about.

“I think the lack of discussion . . . you have seen that right across the provinces. I know that Ulster mentioned it and we have been in long discussions with Munster as well, and that is the general feeling.”

IRFU plan

Four guiding principles to deliver at least two experienced players in all 15 field positions (from Leinster, Munster and Ulster) for national selection:

1 One non-Irish eligible (NIE) player only in each of the 15 field positions across the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Ulster e.g. one foreign player allowed across all three teams per position.

2 For the season 2013/’14 and onwards, for any given position involving a contracted NIE player, a province will not be permitted to renew that NIE player contract or bring in a new NIE player into that same position in its squad.

3 All future provincial injury replacement players must be eligible for selection for Ireland.

4 All future provincial NIE player contracts will be position specific.