ON THIS WEEK’S The42 Rugby Weekly, Andy Dunne and Murray Kinsella joined Gavan Casey to preview and predict the outcomes of the Guinness Pro14 quarter-finals involving three of the Irish provinces this weekend.

But with Ulster and Connacht meeting in one of them, and on the back of two albeit engaging but ultimately meaningless Irish derbies last weekend, the time seemed right to discuss a suggestion by a reader-slash-listener that an interprovincial championship be reintroduced within the Pro14.

Here are the thoughts of Andy and Murray (the full podcast is available on iTunes or your regular podcast provider. And also, congratulations, Munster!):

Murray Kinsella: “Yeah, I really like this idea, whether it be some sort of table at the end of the season or something like the Ranfurly Shield in New Zealand which I really like. It’s a historical competition, I think 1904 it started. They call it the ‘Log o’ Wood’ — it’s a big shield that you get if you win.

“Basically, they do it on a challenge system. So, the holders defend their Ranfurly Shield in their home games in the Mitre 10 Cup and a couple of challenges in pre-season games, as well, against the other New Zealand provincial unions.

“And listen, it’s not the biggest honour in the game anymore, and professionalism has kind of made its stature dwindle, but it is a nice little historied bit of New Zealand rugby, and certainly the players take a great bit of pride in defending it; I think Auckland have 16 wins and they’ve defended it nearly 150 times.

“And it just adds that little bit of extra meaning to fixtures which could potentially be a little bit meaningless otherwise. It’d just add an extra little layer, even if it’s not as big a deal as Champions Cup or even Pro14. I think it’d be fun for fans and players alike.”

The42 Rugby Weekly / SoundCloud

Andy Dunne: “I think it’s crying out for it. We do have four provincial club sides with the vast majority of the squads being from the province; there’s obviously that parochial element to it.

“I’d say some opportunistic sponsor should get in behind it as well and maybe get the games on terrestrial TV — anything like that to just raise the profile of the tournament as well, because it can be… Like, they [the inter-pro fixtures] were dead rubbers last week and those aren’t particularly engaging.

I was part of a Leinster team that won it under Matt Williams back when it was still alive back in…I think it was ’01/02. And we loved the fact that we won it. We’d been knocked out of the European Cup at that stage and Munster were still going strong but Connacht and Ulster were out. And we went down to Galway and beat Connacht to win it. And like, I still have a big squad photo and everyone’s delighted. It’s something that we all certainly enjoyed — it’s not pride of place in the trophy cabinet, but it’s something that definitely captivated us prior to that game; that week, that build-up was like, ‘You’ve a chance to win an inter-pro title’.

“It [inter-pro rivalry] still engages players, but I think there’s opportunities there to bump it up, to make it a bit more commercial; family passes for games — all that type of stuff. It’s just an opportunity gone a-begging a bit, which I’m surprised by in modern, commercial, professional sport, you know?”

MK: “That’s a great point because that marketing side of rugby is massive, and is definitely one of the areas that the sport — which is still young professionally — is going through at the moment.

I think there were 20,000 people in Thomond Park for that Munster-Connacht game which is a really decent crowd, it’s really encouraging. But if you had marketed it as, ‘Munster are going for the inter-provincial championship here and may lift a trophy tonight’, you’d maybe get another three, four, five-thousand through the door, and a bit more excitement at the end of that game. I don’t see the drawback.

“And we’re not trying to disparage — like there’s no doubt all of those players went out with ferocious rivalry in mind, and certainly that Ulster-Leinster game was really entertaining in the end — as was Munster-Connacht — but it just would have added that extra little bit of meaning to all of those fixtures across the board.

“You think of earlier on in the season, Munster absolutely hammering Ulster down in Thomond Park. Potentially it would have changed the picture, there, slightly, in terms of selection. I can’t really see the negatives.”

Bundee Aki bulldozes over against Ulster earlier in the season. James Crombie / INPHO James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO

AD: “Even over in England in the football, there’s a lot more money involved in that. When I was seven years old it was the Milk Cup, and then it was the Littlewoods Cup, and then it was the Carling Cup, now it’s the Carabao Cup — and no one really gives a toss, and they throw out their second and third team. But I guarantee you — Liverpool lost a final a couple of years ago to [Manchester] City under [Jurgen] Klopp; if you offered him that trophy right now, he’d take it.

“It’s not going to change the dynamic if it’s the week before a European game, but if you have a chance to get to a final game and win a trophy and be crowned the best team within your country in that competition, you’d definitely take it.

“You can gloss over like, ‘Ah, well, we didn’t win the inter-pros, it doesn’t matter.’ But ask someone who needs a trophy would they take it, and they’d bite your hand off.”

MK: “And if the sponsor was paying a prize fee of even, let’s say €300k, well there’s most of a good player’s salary which may be an added incentive as well.

“There’s all sorts of little strands to it but we are fully behind it, I think!”

So, what do you think — should an interprovincial championship be reintroduced to Irish rugby?

Subscribe to our new podcast, The42 Rugby Weekly, here: