On Rugby:A double whammy against English Premiership opposition constituted the most anti-climactic weekend imaginable to the group stages of the Heineken European Cup.

That it removed the most impenetrable building block in Ireland's recent rejuvenation, also denying Leinster and Munster home advantage in the quarter-finals, and that Ulster and Connacht lost as well, rubbed salt in the wounds.

As one visiting English journalist to Thomond Park on Saturday quipped: "Why would we want to copy their (Ireland's) system?" Suddenly all is right with the English structures and Ireland's no longer is a module to copy. It is indeed a fickle game.

This was the first time since the opening round of the European Cup in the 1997-'98 season that all three Irish entrants suffered defeat on the same weekend, and the first occasion since the second round of both European competitions that all four Irish provinces suffered defeats.

And it's not as if Munster and Leinster are out of the cup. Indeed, the fact they had already qualified for the knockout stages may even have taken some of the mental and emotional edge off their performance. All the more so with the subconscious thought they didn't have a "home" to host a quarter-finals.

Munster coach Declan Kidney was irritated by the feverish debate and questioning as to where such home quarter-finals may have been held, but it was a valid source of media probing and had been the talk of many a rugby discussion in the build-up to the pool finale.

The weekend's outcomes have saved the IRFU and the Irish political world some embarrassment. More to the point, they have denied Munster the possibility of playing in Musgrave Park and, if rumours were correct, of Leinster hosting a quarter-final in Donnybrook or Ravenhill.

Nonetheless, as away quarter-finals go, it could have been worse; specifically either Munster or Leinster might have had to travel to San Sebastien and face Biarritz or Leicester in Welford Road, not that a buoyant Llanelli and a Wasps, seemingly coming into their usual post-Christmas form, are pushovers.

It wasn't the first weekend the provinces' set-pieces struggled, and the nature of their defeats to Leicester and Gloucester in wet and windy conditions compounded Ireland's biggest fears going into the Six Nations as well as raising questions marks about them progressing further.

Forwards coach Niall O'Donovan has his work cut out. The return of Jerry Flannery gives Ireland and Munster another throwing option, but there is a need to speed the process up and perhaps throw in the odd shortened lineout. The events of the weekend, and Simon Easterby's good form, may well compel the Irish management to restore the Llanelli captain to the starting line-up.

Still, as with the November internationals and the assurance with which Munster and Leinster initially qualified, there can be an over-reaction to the latest setbacks. The Irish team's winning ratio in the pool stages was 61 per cent, which compared favourably to France's (59 per cent) and England's (56 per cent), although interestingly the Welsh boasted the best ratio, for the first time, 71 per cent.

Ominously in all nine of the years with the current formula comprising quarter-finals, none of the ultimate champions had to come through an away quarter-final. But this could be coincidental to a degree, for once a team reaches the last four then there is no home advantage and in latter years away wins at the quarter-final stage have become more commonplace. In the last four years there have been six away wins out of 16 ties.

Leinster showed it could be done away to the then champions Toulouse last season and Munster did so away to the then holders Leicester four seasons ago.

Given their start of one win in six on the opening weekend, to achieve two home quarter-finalists and a third on the road, was quite an achievement for the English clubs. This week then, they have the conch, with their clubs (ominously quiet off the pitch since Serge Blanco's French bombshell) expected to worsen the crisis facing next season's European Cup and with it the very future of the competition.

The more one considers the vote by the La Ligue to boycott next season's tournament, the more one realises the threat is not only real but in many respects suits the French, next season primarily. With 26 weekends of French league action, nine in the European Cup, five in the Six Nations and the first two months set aside for the World Cup (containing from four to seven games), clearly something has to give.

It's almost as if there has to be some blood-letting and the renewal of the Paris Accord regarding the governance, and format, of the European competitions happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so it has become the battleground for much wider issues concerning fixture congestion.

It would help if the top-heavy Top 14 were reduced by a couple of clubs, but that ain't going to happen. Beyond that, it's difficult to see what carrots the ERC or the IRB can offer the French. For sure, the English RFU could concede 50 per cent of their stakeholding in the ERC to their clubs, as Blanco and co have demanded, but one can't help but feel this is a smokescreen on the part of the French clubs.

When Blanco barks, everyone listens. Some of his utterances do seem needlessly provocative and even a little daft, such as calls for a World Club championship and compressing the Six Nations into five straight weekends (so much for player welfare). But he does have a valid point when responding to criticisms the French clubs have too many foreign players when pointing out if it wasn't for them, the likes of the Polynesian Islands, Italy, Romania and Georgia would scarcely have any professional playing resources to compete at Test level.

France can be surprisingly insular, and their decision would be severely damaging to Northern Hemisphere rugby.

The Welsh can always expand their Energy Cup with the English, the French have a lucrative new TV deal with Canal+ for rights to the Top 14 (perhaps the kernel of the matter) and in many respects the biggest losers in all of this will be Irish rugby.