Fair play to them, the militant-minded of you out there might say, but the fallout from this Anglo and French squabble has grave consequences for the immediate future of Irish professional rugby.

The game in this country, as Sean O'Casey would have put it, is in a terrible state of chassis. Although the Heineken Cup is only one strand of the Irish professional system, it is, as we're beginning to see quite rapidly, by far the most crucial element in the mix; the glue that held everything else together, the screw that stopped the whole system from collapsing in on itself. Take it away and you're left with a whole host of uncertainties and a near endless list of questions and queries.

To financial matters first. If we take the worst case scenario and assume that there'll be no Heineken Cup next season, and that it will take at least two or three seasons more to build the competition back to the sponsorship and interest level it currently holds, there are numerous issues for Irish rugby to grapple with.

For one, the 4-5million that the IRFU earn from European competition on an annual basis would disappear from their income and expenditure account overnight. Put simply, the 816,000 profit that the Union made last year would have been a 4million loss if there was no Heineken Cup. In previous years, losses of 6million and 2million would have been greatly exacerbated without European money.

The only logical conclusion you can draw is that the IRFU, knowing that their income is on the slide next year, will have to cut costs. From where? Look at the books and it's not to difficult to see that "Player and Management Costs" as they're termed . . .

effectively the wages of every professional player across the four provinces, as well as the coaching and backroom staff of the international team and provinces . . . is where the biggest chunk is likely to come from. Why, for instance, would a province need a playing staff of 30-odd players when they have just 18 games a season, games that all international players would be available for? Some of the fringe players across the country must be worried about their futures now. And God only knows what's going through the mind of rugby folk down in Connacht. The IRFU have shown in the past that they're willing to jettison the province in a time of financial need and there's nothing to indicate that they won't do it again.

Now, take a look at the individual provinces. Munster and Leinster have signed multi-million euro sponsorship deals in the past month, with Toyota and Bank of Ireland respectively, but already their pot of gold has sprung a leak. Both sponsors will claw a reasonable portion of their money back if the Heineken Cup doesn't go ahead next season, and when you consider the decrease in gate receipts brought about by the disappearance of three home Heineken Cup fixtures, you don't need a mathematical brain to decipher the trouble they're in.

If anything, Munster are in the biggest dilemma of all four provinces. The main, indeed only, stand at Thomond Park has already been levelled to the ground but it this era of uncertainty, should they really be going ahead with a 25,000 capacity stadium that could drag the province into serious financial difficulty?

Already their 10-year ticket scheme . . . which promises tickets for four Magners League games and three Heineken Cup games every year for 5,500 . . . is in serious difficulty and if you were the banker putting up the finance for such a project, would you be having second thoughts about your money?

The finances to one side, the rugby problems brought about by this Heineken Cup drama have the potential to be ever more ruinous, even affecting the IRFU's biggest cash cow, the national side.

As Eddie O'Sullivan pointed out in newspaper articles on Friday, the Heineken Cup bridges the gap between Magners League and international rugby and has allowed Irish players to compete with, and beat, the top French and English teams on a more regular basis. It has been a huge contributory factor in Ireland becoming more competitive and consistent at international level.

Take a player like Luke Fitzgerald, for example. The Leinster youngster faces one year, and potentially a lot more, without any Heineken Cup experience. Wonderful talent that he is, how is he expected to adapt to the rigours of international rugby in the coming years if he hasn't played in the next best thing? There are dozens more like him.

The next poser is how the IRFU will fill the eight weeks of the Magners League calendar that are currently set aside for the Heineken Cup.

Bring back the Celtic Cup?

Hopefully not, although they could set up some sort of knock-out competition involving the Celtic Nations and the Italians, and maybe even dust off the old Rainbow Cup document, the proposed competition involving South African, Italian, Irish and Scottish sides that briefly got some air time a few years back.

But will Ireland's top players want to play in such a contrived competition? Or even the Magners League? Earlier this season, when Brian O'Driscoll signed his new Leinster contract, his stated reason for staying was to win the Heineken Cup with his home province. He reckoned winning the tournament with a foreign club just wouldn't mean as much to him. We wonder what he thinks now that he's on a Magners League diet for the immediate future.

You can make the same arguments about Ireland's other top players, the likes of Gordon D'Arcy, Shane Horgan, Paul O'Connell and Ronan O'Gara. The lure of foreign lands and different competitions surely has to be that little bit stronger after this week's happenings.

All this, of course, is worst case scenario stuff. The IRFU's immediate priority, along with the rest of the ERC board members, is to find a solution to the current impasse at Thursday's meeting in Dublin.

The Union's attitude right now is that everything possible will be done to get the competition back on track for next season, and they will only begin to draw up alternative arrangements for the future of Irish rugby if all attempts fail. It's going to take some mighty fine negotiating to rein in all the egos involved and you can't help feeling that even if Henry Kissinger was on hand, it's going to prove near impossible to resurrect the competition in time for next season.

Despite the weekend that's in it, don't expect any miracles.