The lure of foreign fields: Gerry Thornley looks at the reasons why a growing number of Irish players are travelling overseas to ply their trade

The trickle hasn't quite become a flood. Nevertheless there is a steady stream of Irish players heading abroad to ply their trade, mostly in England, where, irony of ironies, Guinness are the new title sponsor of the Premiership, which kicks off this weekend. All told, another eight indigenous Irish players left these shores in the close-season, and only three came in the opposite direction.

This trend goes against the IRFU's oft-stated policy to keep indigenous players at home and Eddie O'Sullivan's understandable preference for picking home-based players in the Irish set-up as well as keeping tabs on their workload.

However, whether O'Sullivan likes it or not, he and others on the Irish management may be obliged to make more treks abroad than they have done in recent years.

All told, there are 24 Irishmen playing frontline rugby for English, French, Scottish or Welsh clubs - 27 if one includes the trio at recently relegated Harlequins, who should, with the help of Andrew Mehrtens's retirement package, be among the favourites to win promotion and make a swift return.

Of these, 21 are home-produced players. Nor does this take into account the half-dozen ex-Belfast Harlequins players lured to Rotherham by their former coach Andre Bester.

The numbers taking flight haven't been so alarming since the onset of professionalism, when the wild geese descended mostly on Sunbury around nine years ago.

After initially dipping their toes by contracting only a select handful of players at each of the provinces, the IRFU gradually set about establishing a quartet of fully fledged professional set-ups and their efforts to lure the prodigal sons home were greatly helped when Warren Gatland boldly declared he would favour home-based players over those based overseas.

However, that threat has ebbed in time, not least to those on the periphery.

The patriot in Niall Woods, the CEO of the Irish Rugby Union Player Association, doesn't like seeing this exodus, but as a pragmatist and a former player who is more au fait than most with their concerns and desires, he can well understand it.

Woods points out that the inherent if unspoken "threat" of not playing for Ireland - an understandable wish and bargaining tool by the IRFU and Eddie O'Sullivan - perhaps doesn't carry the same weight it used to.

"There are only 15 people who can start any one Test match, and only 22 on duty for any given Test match, and the Irish team has become quite settled in recent times," Woods observed. "If they're not getting onto the Irish team they might not see a way through, and can be tempted to earn more money. At the end of the day it is a job."

The lure of foreign pastures becomes even more attractive when, as Woods puts it, some players are "not treated properly", and he puts Shane Byrne and Leo Cullen into this category.

Their contracts expired at the end of last season but inexcusably they were left dangling - in Byrne's case right up until his selection for the Lions.

The irony is that because they were internationally contracted, their negotiations were conducted through the IRFU, yet while they will still be available to Ireland, Leinster will miss out on them.

Often too, the chance to play abroad can also offer a life-enhancing and career-enhancing change as well as the opportunity to buy a new wallet. And, of course, that is the nature of any professional sport the world over.

International stars such as Brian O'Driscoll and Denis Hickie, whose contracts are believed to expire at the end of this season, will always be coveted by some leading English and French clubs, and indeed playing rugby in the south of France will hold attractions for players such as them.

Not just them either. Charlie McCreevy's tax rebate for players who start and finish their professional careers here has undoubtedly been an incentive for players to remain within these shores. Nonetheless, the low tax rates for players in their first year in France are an enticing counterattraction, while some, such as the 34-year-old Byrne, will still take a calculated gamble that he won't be injured in the next two years at Saracens and thus prevented from finishing his career in Ireland.

Presumably if a returning Irish player can prove to the Inland Revenue he was being paid in his final year(s) here, even at club level, then that would entitle him to the 40-per-cent rebate on whatever tax he has paid as a professional sportsman in his time in Ireland. But, significantly, a first test case still awaits.

It's also long been forecast in these pages and elsewhere that English and French clubs would start targeting non-frontline players. For all the prioritising of Team Ireland, players also want success. Trevor Brennan and Johnny O'Connor have two league championships and three European Cups between them at Wasps and Toulouse.

Now Aidan McCullen has hooked up with Brennan at Toulouse, where they've had the same head coach for a dozen years, in stark contrast to the underachievements and disruptions at Leinster, where they've had three coaches in three years.

Gatland has left behind an Irish colony at Wasps with Peter Bracken, Eoin Reddan and Jeremy Staunton linking up with O'Connor, and now, emulating Harlequins in the last couple of seasons, Leicester and Northampton have conducted some "bargain hunting" in Ireland as well.

The experience of Harlequins, and particularly that of Staunton, ought to serve as a salutary warning to starry-eyed Irish players, and several might yet find themselves getting more time in the bogus-looking, revamped English/Welsh Powergen Cup than the Premiership or Heineken European Cup.

Ironically, London Irish have long since cast their net toward the Southern Hemisphere, and none of their newcomers were signed from Ireland. Even so, a core of Irish players remain there, and though "Exiles" such as the Easterbys seem to be curiously diminishing, the odd gem can still turn up.

Much is thought of Shane Geraghty. A younger brother of Kieran Geraghty, who has played for the Irish Under-21s, the 18-year-old outhalf-cum-centre is also coveted by England and has played for their Under-18s.

Dubbed the next Mike Catt, Geraghty is on the bench for London Irish away to Leeds today. Irish rugby needs more Geraghtys, and fewer wild geese.