IRFU Chief Executive Philip Browne would have watched, with alarm, the implosion of the FAI in December last year.  In the early months of the new year, he headed to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to discuss the FAI with Assistant Secretary Ken Spratt.  The IRFU has a material interest in the FAI. It’s shackled to it through their shared ownership of the Aviva Stadium.  The potential collapse of the FAI created both long term and immediate problems for the IRFU. In the long term, the Aviva Stadium needed regular soccer internationals, and the FAI’s financial collapse put…