Lords of misrule

As things stand there is no Celtic League for next season, no staple diet outside the Heineken Cup which means a guarantee of just six matches plus the new Anglo-Welsh Cup with a certainty of just three games.

That clearly isn't enough to keep professional rugby alive. If there is no Celtic League in operation next season professional rugby will be dead. It's as simple as that.

The television bosses won't pour money into a domestic competition involving the four Welsh regions playing one another three times a season.

Sure, it would involve another 12 matches on top of the Heineken and Anglo-Welsh and there would be a lot of keen local rivalry, but where would the money come from to pay the players and keep professional rugby going?

It's a massive problem, the size of which shouldn't be underestimated. It's a problem which has to be resolved - and pretty soon, too.

Basically, the governing bodies in Wales, Ireland and Scotland need to get into a room, have their heads banged together to knock some sense in and the door locked until they have come up with some positive answers.

There is far too much posturing going on and the game's rulers ought to know better for they are playing with the very future of the game and they risk affecting players' livelihoods.

The Irish and the Scots are upset because their Welsh rivals have been talking to their England counterparts behind their backs and have come up with a five-year deal involving the participation of the four Welsh regions in a new Anglo-Welsh Cup.

They have even sorted out dates for the new competition which do not suit the Irish in particular because they fear it would detract from the Celtic League and involve them playing league games during the international periods.

And all at a time when they have finally come around to using the league as qualification for the Heineken Cup. So enraged have they been at developments that they have got together with the Scots and basically kicked the Welsh out of the Celtic League, saying they will run a competition among teams from their two countries instead.

A fat lot of use that will be, sponsors will be queuing up to back it and the crowds will flock in, for sure, not to mention television companies rushing to show it on their screens.

That's living in cloud cuckoo land and they know it, just as they realise the bulk of the money to keep the Celtic League afloat comes from Wales and Welsh TV.

So while they might be understandably a bit miffed at Wales getting into bed with England it's only in a cup competition - there's no chance of it stretching to the newly named Guinness Premiership.

And it appears that while WRU officials were talking to their English opposite numbers Ireland and Scotland were trying to get some Italian sides into an expanded Celtic League which could well have involved only home or away games.

They were also putting feelers out about a new Rainbow Cup competition involving South Africa as well, without any Welsh involvement in such meetings.

So the words pot, kettle and black come to mind - hence the need to get that meeting going to bang a few heads together.

A compromise has to be found somewhere because the consequences are too awful to contemplate for all three countries.

Even if an agreement is reached it will be a few weeks down the road because leading figures are out of their respective countries, away on tour. As it is, a great deal of damage has been done already.

The whole domestic game is in limbo - there is nothing to organise, no player recruitment involved, no sponsorship coming in and no season ticket sales happening because as things stand there is nothing to sell.

Llanelli Scarlets have even been offering customers a refund. What a farce the whole thing is. Once again it beggars belief.

Meanwhile, there is little evidence to deny that it's going to be a summer of sporting torment at the hands of the Southern Hemisphere.

It's early days yet but it's looking odds-on a 3-0 Test series triumph for the All Blacks against the British Lions while, unless the dreadful British weather intervenes, I'm backing the Aussie cricketers to show England what Test cricket really is all about and whitewash them 5-0.

Even the weather couldn't deny one happy cigar smoking Spaniard, Miguel Angel Jimenez, the Celtic Manor Wales Open golf crown after a scintillating final nine holes, the quality of which us hackers can only marvel at. It rescued the tournament from descending into a who's that rather than a who's who leader board of European golf.

And what sort of return is it when our own Colin Montgomerie gets paid around £1m appearance money over five years and misses the cut - by a long way at that - two years in three?