{"id":2406,"date":"2014-09-22T15:34:05","date_gmt":"2014-09-22T14:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/?p=2406"},"modified":"2014-09-22T15:34:05","modified_gmt":"2014-09-22T14:34:05","slug":"tony-ward-devalue-clubs-pro-game-slippery-slope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/tony-ward-devalue-clubs-pro-game-slippery-slope\/","title":{"rendered":"Tony Ward: Devalue the clubs and pro game is on a slippery slope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/tony-ward-rugby.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/tony-ward-rugby.jpg\" alt=\"tony ward rugby\" width=\"640\" height=\"323\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-2407\" srcset=\"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/tony-ward-rugby.jpg 640w, https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/tony-ward-rugby-300x151.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nLast week in Limerick and Dublin, the Ulster Bank All Ireland League kicked into gear. It is a much earlier start than times past, but I have no issue with that.<\/p>\n<p>Some may feel it is squeezing players tight in terms of pre-season preparation, but when I played, the start of the season couldn&#8217;t come quickly enough, and I suspect the vast majority of club players out there still think upon similar lines.<\/p>\n<p>Add in the fact that in general September offers good firm playing conditions, and an early start is an easy sell.<\/p>\n<p>Looking ahead at the fixtures, the one glaring inadequacy comes in October, when effectively a full month is written off, I assume for the opening rounds of the B&#038;I Cup, a competition for the provinces&#8217; peripheral players.<br \/>\n&#8211; See more at: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.ie\/sport\/rugby\/other-rugby\/tony-ward-devalue-the-clubs-and-pro-game-is-on-a-slippery-slope-30583669.html#sthash.pdv0suoi.dpuf\">http:\/\/www.independent.ie\/sport\/rugby\/other-rugby\/tony-ward-devalue-the-clubs-and-pro-game-is-on-a-slippery-slope-30583669.html#sthash.pdv0suoi.dpuf<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last week in Limerick and Dublin, the Ulster Bank All Ireland League kicked into gear. It is a much earlier start than times past, but I have no issue with that. Some may feel it is squeezing players tight in terms of pre-season preparation, but when I played, the start of the season couldn&#8217;t come [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2407,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1836],"tags":[860,1194,153,477,1195,1192,1193],"class_list":["post-2406","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","tag-clubs-2","tag-devalue","tag-game","tag-pro","tag-suffers","tag-tony","tag-ward"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2406"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2408,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2406\/revisions\/2408"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/intouchrugby.com\/connacht\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}