After that week, the last seven days saw what passes for sanity restored in the modern madcap world of rugby. Malcolm O'Kelly moaned about the money which the English-based players are being offered as another contractual row brewed, Darragh O'Mahoney moaned about being out of sight and out of mind, the English clubs arrogantly unveiled `their' plans for `their' European Cup, Ulster beat Toulouse as all four Irish provinces remained on course for the knock-out stages and an Irish squad tilted the trend homeward by having more domestic-based players than foreign-based.

Meanwhile the men in the IRFU no doubt contemplated the union's fate in the fall-out of the drugs affair as the condemnatory brickbats kept flying steadily their way. Noel Murphy apparently (and understandably) took a week's breather, probably thinking to himself "oh infamy, infamy, everybody's got it in for me."

He must be wondering is it worth it. Billy Lavery, a softly spoken retired solicitor, must also be wondering if it will be worth it when his time comes. Maybe the rest of the part-time committee have started to wonder, too.

Perhaps the recent past will be a watershed, and the unwieldy part-time committee and the honorary officers will vote over the real power to a chief executive along with a more streamlined and professional management board. If they do get the union's structures right, it will be their ultimate legacy, for there are clear signs that they are finally getting the playing structures right.

Ulster's win over Toulouse is arguably the best result by any Irish province in the last four years of Euro fare. It more than compensated for Munster's failure to beat previously pointless Neath (put in perspective by the inability of any other Welsh side to pick up a point in the European Cup last weekend) and the more predictable defeats for Leinster and Connacht to classy French opposition.

All four provinces still have their destiny in their own hands and are well on course to reach the knock-out stages - a striking improvement on just two qualifiers in total over the previous three years.

It's long since been argued by the respective provincial coaches, this column and a host of others that once the union professionalised the provinces, then performances would improve. Belatedly, but better late than never, the correlation has been manifested in the hard currency of results as well.

For the first time in the four years of Euro fare, the Irish provinces are winning more matches than they are losing, and thus have clearly leapfrogged the Welsh and the Scots for the first time ever.

Whether taking the Cup or the Shield in isolation, or pooling them together, the winning percentages are largely unaltered. Adding both competitions together, and excluding all-French matches, the table reads:

The four Irish provinces' winning ratio of 64 per cent is up on last year's rate of 28 per cent, and the previous season's 42. Granted, the English clubs aren't involved this year, but then again they weren't in the 1995/96 campaign either, while aroused Irish sides tended to perform quite well against English clubs anyway - winning four of eight encounters last season.

True, the absence of Cardiff and Swansea has probably exacerbated the Welsh decline. But even so, the Irish results speak for themselves, and prompted Gerald Davies and Neath coach Lynn Jones enviously to debate Ireland's superior structures last weekend. It also questions the English clubs (and Swansea and Cardiff's?) proposal for a 32-team Euro Cup involving 10 each from England and France, four Welsh, two Irish, two Scottish, two Italian and one each from Spain and Portugal, rather laughable.

The improved results in turn go some way to vindicating the decision to include 15 Irish-based players in yesterday's squad of 28 players and is all part of the stated policy of redirecting the best Irish players home.

All of which seems to be making the English-based members of the squad feeling unloved, unwanted, and perhaps most pertinent of all, unnoticed and underpaid - judging by some of the injudicious quotes attributed to them.

Regarding O'Mahony, the perceived lack of communication may be as much his fault. O'Mahony also wondered aloud whether the Irish management knew which club he had left Moseley for. Well, his inclusion yesterday ought to disabuse the prolific Bedford winger of that notion.

There are still a dozen English-based players in the squad and if anything, being out of sight may have been a help rather than a hindrance to some of them. For example, Jeremy Davidson and Dion O'Cuinneagain have been included despite playing little or no rugby - the former's proposed full debut for Castres away to Roma last weekend being postponed. In contrast, the regularly watched Denis Hickie, Gabriel Fulcher and all the Munster back-rowers have been omitted.

As for O'Kelly's surprising complaint (after all, he doesn't strike you as unduly concerned about such matters) regarding a basic retainer of only £5,000 compared to £15,000 last year, it's worth bearing in mind that home-based players are full-time employees of the union and thus are constantly at the union's beck and call.

Furthermore, by this writer's calculations, big Mal and any other English-based Irish international who appeared in all seven games in the regular season last season would have earned £22,000, plus one win bonus of £3,000 (for beating Canada).

For attendance at 10 squad sessions this season, the figure would be £27,000 (given match fees for English-based players only have doubled to £2,000), plus win bonuses. As the first two games are against Georgia and Romania, this ought to mean a hike of at least £8,000 to 33K, with five more win bonuses on offer in the New Year.

If certain Irish players in England feel hard done by, then perhaps they should have negotiated separate, independent contracts. Besides, as the case of Eric Miller shows, a player's market value at club level largely depends on his international profile, not the other way around.

The lack of sympathy for the cause of rebellious players in this instance is palpable, especially given the Irish team has picked up the Five Nations wooden spoon for the last three years.

Thus, it's doubtful the public would complain about the union's slant towards incentive-based financial packages. Indeed, the more performance based, and maybe even performance enhancing, the financial inducements are for Irish players, the better.