The irony of it all was only delicious. A confidential report from the IRFU's national fitness adviser, Craig White, was leaked to the Sun- day Independent and contained some damning evidence about the fitness of certain IRFU-contracted Munster players. Same as it ever was? That afternoon Cork Constitution go out and ensure that the AIB League crown will head back to Munster, with them or Garryowen, for the ninth year running next Saturday. Same as it ever was.

In the circumstances, Cork Constitution co-coach Packie Derham couldn't resist a cutting riposte. If it's athletes White is looking for, fine, "down here we've got rugby players." Winning rugby players at that.

For not alone does the Munster monopoly of the AIL continue apace, but the province are also the reigning interprovincial champions, as they have been in three of the last five seasons.

Under-achievers some of them may be in terms of endurance fitness and body-fat ratios, but they're pretty high achievers when it comes to winning, as one of their number sarcastically observed yesterday. Oh, this has got their hackles up again.

The Munster players trained again yesterday, as they do every weekday morning, and this time all the Cork-based players travelled to Limerick for the session. The report came up for about 10 minutes' conversation. Carry on regardless seems to have been the gist of their response.

Their siege mentality serves them well at such moments. The insult has been taken personally, and understandably so. Had the Donnybrook interprovincial decider been next weekend then the report would probably have motivated Munster to beat Leinster by another 10 or 20 points. Likewise if a Leinster team was the opposition for the AIL final next Saturday. No contest.

However, amid the bristling mood, was an anger that White's report and his comments were unfair to Munster players generally, and that poor results from others didn't warrant the same condemnation.

Munster have a victimisation complex which the public leaking of White's report will merely fuel. No less than the drugs saga, the inability to name names for legal reasons means the cloud of suspicion hangs over everybody, or as Munster see it, everybody in their province. Yet one of their number, who privately concedes that he is one of the players criticised in the report, says he has no axe to bear against White.

The Munstermen may be taking unnecessary umbrage, even if they should also be concerned. The report isn't, it seems, that negative or heavily weighted against the Munster contingent. Out of roughly 100 players tested, apparently 10 or 12 caused concern, of whom six or seven were Munster players.

There were also a number of extremely positive reports, and general satisfaction with strength and speed testing, particularly among the top tier of contracted players.

It's all grist to the Munster mill anyway, and also exacerbates the perception throughout the game of the "live hard, play hard" philosophy in the province by comparison to the greater work ethic in, say, Ulster and Leinster.

All very generalised of course. Whatever about their mentality, there's no doubt that the Munster boys have more of a winning mentality (even if this can at times be founded on inconsistent, one-off, adrenalin-charged performances).

Saturday's first semi-final was one of the most compelling examples of this. Whereas St Mary's took unerring aim at both feet and completely cracked - reduced to running down the clock in the last quarter rather than digging deep and going for the score that would have killed the game - Garryowen went for the jugular and eked out a win.

Could you possibly imagine Shannon forfeiting a 17-point lead against 14 opponents, or any Munster side for that matter? It's scarcely in the realms of possibility. Reputedly, part of the reason that the Munster clubs have retained a bit of a mental edge to the end of the AIL campaign is that in the last month the Munster management have given their players a bit more leeway than other provinces in the interests of their clubs. They are, supposedly, that little bit sharper and fresher mentally.

GEORGE HOOK, who took over as Galwegians coach for their five-game run-in, maintains that his club would have been better off with just four fully-contracted Connacht players (a la Buccaneers) than the 11 Galwegians have.

Already committed to six or seven sessions a week with Connacht, Hook consciously reduced Galwegians' training time. It's striking to note than Ballymena, who carried the brunt of Ulster's European Cup success, suffered in the league, as perhaps did Shannon in Munster and to a lesser degree Lansdowne in Leinster. All of which again highlights the increasingly problematic tug-of-war between a representative player's three masters. In due course, something has to give and most probably that will be at the clubs' expense - a la the southern hemisphere model.

Yet, one of the supposed ironies of this whole situation is that contracted players who continued a full commitment to their provinces as well as their clubs were more likely to achieve better results in their fitness tests under White than players who were playing better rugby every second Saturday. That sounds like a distinctly flawed argument.

Of course, what's good for the goose isn't necessarily good for the gander, i.e. what's good, say, for Munster clubs or even the Munster provincial scene isn't necessarily good for Ireland. With regard to contracted players, whether or not their clubs win the AIL or their provinces win the interprovincial title is secondary to their fitness and performance levels for Ireland.

Furthermore, the fitness levels required for a successful club player or even a successful provincial player are a long way removed from the fitness levels demanded of modern-day international rugby.

Irish rugby is still in the teething stages of a fully professionalised, provincial structure and as things stand, basic fitness levels are not written into IRFU player contracts. Henceforth, however, they will be, while three-monthly tests in Dublin for all contracted players will take place next season.

In any event, the bottom line is that if a player receives a contract of, say, £35,000 per annum, and he cannot achieve the basic fitness levels required of his primary employers (i.e. the IRFU) then barring mitigating circumstances, quite simply he doesn't deserve to have his contract renewed. Regardless of what club or province he hails from. End of story.