The most striking innovation in this year's Six Nations Championship will be the advent of the countdown clock for all matches. An established feature of rugby in the Southern Hemisphere as well as rugby league, the countdown clock greatly added to the drama of the 2003 World Cup, most obviously in the final.
As England trundled downfield with the game's penultimate play, everyone in the ground and the millions watching would have been keeping one eye on the clock as it neared the 80-minute mark. The players assuredly were, which probably enabled Matt Dawson to snipe for the first time in the match and get Jonny Wilkinson 20 metres nearer to the posts, as well as allowing Martin Johnson a close-in rumble so Dawson could regain his place at the base of the ruck to feed Wilkinson.
Furthermore, it heightened the tension as Australia had no option but to race to the half-way line for the restart, and as everyone watching was aware, never has the contest for a restart carried such importance.
The downside is it allows teams to run down the clock, an example being Mike Catt's ensuing decision to hoof the ball out of play and so end the game.
Overall the positives outweigh the negatives, not the least in that injury time heretofore in the Northern Hemisphere has been at the discretion of the referees.
In the forthcoming championship, as in the World Cup, referees will signal a "time-out" to the TMO (television match official) whenever there is a stoppage in play. The countdown clock will show on television screens as well as in the ground.
The new clock on the East Stand of Lansdowne Road will have a countdown facility and the IRFU chief executive, Philip Browne, is "pretty certain" that pending the completion of sponsorship discussions there will be a giant TV screen in the ground which will also have a countdown clock.
The paying customers (and, to an extent, the Celtic nations and Italy) continue to be somewhat incidental in the greater scheme of things and for the first time in the competition there will be the faintly ridiculous concept of a 9 p.m. kick-off in Stade de France for the hoped-for Grand Slam, grand finale between France and England.
This will be last leg of the last round of matches on Saturday, March 27th, which the organisers like to call "Super Saturday".
One ventures Sunday newspaper journalists will struggle to see what is so "super" about a finale that will finish close to 11 p.m. French time on a Saturday, much less the paying spectators who then have to negotiate their way out of the St Denis suburb in outer Paris.
The contrived England-France "decider", which came at the behest of BBC television primarily as well as the sponsors and organisers, forced a rescheduling of the championship's fixture list and is an insult to the other four countries, not least when one thinks of Ireland taking the championship to a Grand Slam decider with England at Lansdowne Road last season.
Meanwhile, in recognition of his burgeoning reputation, Alain Rolland has been chosen as referee for that game, a fair reward for the former Ireland scrumhalf given he was probably the most impressive referee in the World Cup when what seemed an old-pals' act had already ensured a carve-up of the last four matches. Not to begrudge Alain his big night, but with a bit of luck, one or other of them will be beaten en route.
