2006-2007 preview: Gerry Thornley on a hectic season ahead as even the European Cup is eclipsed by the autumn jamboree in France
Two seasons in one or two distinct seasons? As an addendum to the upcoming season, all roads lead to France in the autumn of 2007 and in the intervening period the sixth Rugby World Cup will increasingly dominate the agenda of the rugby-playing world.
Typical of most of the elite nine or 10 countries, Ireland will kick into action in November against the Springboks with the first of at least 16 scheduled Tests in an 11-month period in at least nine different cities; and that's not taking into account the knock-out stages of the World Cup.
Following on from an expanded Tri- Nations, the battery of November internationals (the leading half-dozen European countries host 20 Tests that month) and the 15-match Six Nations in February and March, summer tour matches have been augmented by World Cup warm-up games in late summer next year before the 48-match jamboree in the autumn.
You have to wonder how much more of a good thing rugby can take before Test matches reach saturation point. Put another way, it's not as if rugby has an expansive cast, a la football, and come RWC 2007 - outside of some ritual slaughterings - there won't be too many fixtures with an apparent novelty value.
Once again, Dr Liam Hennessy and co will have to factor in the anticipated participation of an Irish A squad in the Churchill Cup, which is yet to be finalised. Ireland's international programme is given added lustre by first bidding farewell to Lansdowne Road in November with, alas, one of three home fixtures on Sundays this season - an unlikely finale on November 26th against a composite Fiji, Tonga and Samoa selection otherwise known as The Pacific Islands - and then moving into Croke Park for the Six Nations.
Ireland v France, Sunday, February 11th! It looms as the stand-out fixture of the season. After all the speculation and debating, it still seems a little surreal. Such is the historical landmark of the occasion, one imagines it will be the hottest ticket in town, along with the visit of England to Croke Park (now that really is surreal) on Saturday, February 24th.
The first of two Tests in Argentina at the end of May rather preposterously takes place a week after the Heineken European Cup final. This revives memories of the tour there in 2000 when Ireland lost the first of a three-Test trek to the Americas in Buenos Aires by 34-23 seven days after Munster had lost the European final to Northampton by 9-8 in Twickenham.
The flip side is it allows Ireland some breathing space in a shortened off-season before playing Scotland in Murrayfield on August 11th and they will play at a third home venue in this period when hosting Italy in Ravenhill a fortnight later in readiness for the World Cup. It will be Ireland's first Test at Ravenhill since a 6-0 win over Scotland in February 1954.
Compounding the sense of déjà vu, as was the case four and eight years ago, Ireland's final pool fixture against Argentina (their ninth meeting in a little over seven years) in Parc des Princes on September 30th next year looms as a make-or-break affair.
Cast in stone, thankfully, is the European Cup, assuming the same format and slots in the calendar as a gradual entente cordial emerges between the English and French clubs and their respective union and federation as well as the ERC, thanks in large part to the increased revenue brought about by a new deal with Canal+ in France.
This season, of course, Munster hold the mantle of European champions, and begin their campaign with a daunting but enticing visit to two-time winners Leicester's Welford Road fortress on Sunday, October 22nd. The return visits of Bourgoin and Cardiff to Thomond Park are signed off by a first competitive visit to the Limerick citadel of Leicester on Saturday, January 20th in another potentially monumental finale to the group stages.
The newly-sponsored and newly-titled Magners League sets the season in motion next weekend, with reigning champions Ulster entertaining Llanelli on Saturday evening in Ravenhill. However, the absence of Ireland's frontliners for the first four weeks militates against the chances of another Irish Celtic League one-two-three.
By contrast, virtually all of Wales' leading players will feature - helped in part by an injury toll which saw roughly 20 players ruled out of their summer tour to Argentina.
Much of the old anomalies remain; for example, the devilishly puzzling concept of each week's "idle" team receiving four points. The Welsh clubs' participation in the Anglo-Welsh Cup also means juggling the fixtures and is likely to ensure a slightly shapeless table for much of the campaign.
After an opening trek to the Borders next Friday, Connacht, curiously, then play six successive league games in their new Friday night slot under the Sportsground floodlights, followed by a home game in the European Challenge Cup (in which they are also pooled with Bath and Montpellier). Thereafter, though, Michael Bradley's team have only one home league game (against Munster on New Year's Eve) between mid-October and March.
With Munster's home games having been recently finalised, it is intriguing to note the European champions will at last host Leinster at Thomond Park for the first time since 1995 on Wednesday, December 27th. Eureka. After Christmas cabin fever, that could be one of the highlights of the season.
As Shannon seek another four-year-in-a-row and their ninth First Division crown overall, the slow wheels of bureaucracy only recently resolved the make-up of the top flights.
In effect, the relegation of Dublin University and promotion of Dolphin was ratified despite objections.
Arrangements for the AIB Cup and AIB Club internationals, two additions to the calendar last season, have still to be finalised but of greater concern to the clubs will be the expanded number of A games which the provinces have lined up and have still to be worked into an overcrowded calendar.
