BOTH JOE Schmidt and Brian McLaughlin have expressed their disappointment at the manner in which the IRFU have rolled out their plan aimed at improving strength in depth of home-grown players.

Basically, the provinces will be forced to replace high-profile foreign recruits with Irish-qualified players once their contracts are up from 2013-14. Two foreign players cannot play in any one provincial position.

Provincial coaches have long bitten their tongue when it comes to the IRFU prioritising the international squad’s development but Schmidt was unable to hide his frustrations last night. “I was massively disappointed in the way that they did it and I know from speaking to the other provincial coaches that they feel the same way about the timing of it and the way it was done,” said the Leinster head coach.

“Irish rugby is going really well at the moment. I am not a massive fan of ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’; if it ain’t broke you keep going in that direction, you are always fine-tuning. This is what they deem to be fine-tuning.”

Irish provinces are currently allowed five foreign players plus one player (like Richardt Strauss) who will be naturalised via residency. That is being reduced to four plus one next season.

“I think there has been a lot of comparison of Ireland with other nations,” Schmidt continued. “If Ireland had beaten Wales [in the World Cup quarter-final] would we be doing this? Wales have a six-plus-two policy so they have eight foreign players and people are lording the young players coming through there.

“The PCRG [professional contracts review group] have a veto on who we get from outside already so if there are imbalances they have been approved by them. I have never spoken out about the player management programme or anything else but I can definitely say I am disappointed about this.

“Obviously they’ve made it so it happens in 2013-2014, and that’s still a way down the track, so there may still be some adjustment that could be made,” Schmidt added. “But we certainly had it handed down as a fait accompli.”

Only one non-Irish eligible player will be permitted in each of the 15 field positions across the provinces of Leinster, Munster and Ulster; one foreign player allowed across all three teams per position.

A recent example of what Ulster, Munster or Leinster (Connacht are not included) will not be permitted to do was the short-term signing by Ulster of Stefan Terblanche.

McLaughlin expressed frustration with the lack of communication between the IRFU and the provincial coaches.

“The IRFU believe that this is going to be good for their international team. In my opinion, we should have been involved in the process; we weren’t. We would have like to have been involved in it and have our say.

“My opinion is that I agree with developing players for the senior Irish team. To change it is the IRFU prerogative but we feel we should have been involved in the process.”

McLaughlin also defended the decision to field such a blatantly under-strength selection in last night’s defeat.

Ulster’s only front-line player was naturalised Irish prop Tom Court, who came on at half-time.

“We have a four-day turnaround before Munster on Friday night. You got to use your squad. We had to do it last year as well because of the scheduling and again this year.

“We said we could mix the teams or go the whole hog so that’s what we did, we kept the Ravens together.

“Some people said it was lambs to the slaughter but I am 100 per cent happy with how we conducted ourselves.”