Mr. Philip Browne:

Yes they are. The way it works is that any revenues generated by tournaments in which they participate come to the centre, to the IRFU and we use them to effectively pay the player, coach and technical staff salaries across the provinces. The provinces' revenues are effectively limited to gate receipts, sponsorships and any other hospitality revenues they can generate locally.

They are massively reliant on gate receipts and all four provinces are suffering equally in not being able to have paying spectators through the turnstiles. It has effectively decimated their finances and their business model. The IRFU has had to step in to try to help them financially, which obviously impacts our central finances. The central contracting model has been great for us up to now but in the current circumstances, it is actually working against us.