RUGBY/European Cup: It's the essence of European rugby and it's back, and not a moment too soon. Disciplinary hearings into brutal warfare at a couple of French grounds? Stade Francais and Toulouse flexing their pecks in front of a world-record crowd? Sale's ominous emergence at the top of the "best league in the world" just before Munster come calling in the continuing search for their Holy Grail? Yeah, bring it on.
Who wants French paragons of virtue anyway? Or, heaven forbid, English modesty? Somehow it all seems merely to whet the appetite.
This season sees independent citing commissioners, a long overdue remedy for tit-for-tat citings. (There's also an expansion to squad lists from 34 to 36, but why set such limits in such a highly attritional sport?)
The commissioners will only be at games televised live, but there's not exactly a shortage of them; eight per weekend, including a couple of deferred games.
Six pool winners and the two best runners-up doesn't always ensure the last eight are the best eight.
Last season, all six pool winners won at least five of their games, and the threshold for a home quarter-final was 22 points (Munster missed out after failing to press home two-try interval leads in three of their pool wins), while the cut-off for the second-best runners-up was 19 points - and that was three points lower than the year before.
Sadly, there's no getting away from it; in the six years of this tournament's format, at least one of the two best runners-up has emerged from a group containing an Italian team.
We tend to forget, too, but the landscape quickly becomes clearer after the first two rounds. For those with two defeats, their goose is pretty much cooked, out of the oven, sliced and served, and thereafter can play accordingly.
After a slow start, the Irish have punched above their weight. Four quarter-finalists, four semi-finalists, two runners-up and one winner in the last eight seasons is a pretty decent return.
By contrast, the initially strong Welsh challenge has dwindled. They drew a blank last season after two losing home quarter-finals in the previous two seasons by Llanelli. And the Scots have had only one quarter-finalist.
An injury crisis in Wales, the advent of the Powergen Cup and the fact only the utterly-unreliable Cardiff have a decent draw, doesn't bode well this time around either.
In the beginning, French clubs were innately more professional, before their inwardness saw them overtaken by the English clubs. But they've regrouped, and backed by benefactors, better resources and bigger squads, have provided five finalists and two winners in the last three years.
As Munster coach Declan Kidney admits, it is now harder for the Irish provinces even than it was when Munster reached the 2000 and 2002 finals. Pointing to the six-month tax amnesty for new recruits in France, Kidney says: "The reason it's got tougher is that the French are taking it much more seriously.
"Commercially it's a huge thing in England now, and when you run your team on a commercial basis then obviously their focus is far greater than it was."
There is another significant factor at work. Much like the cartels at the top of the major European football leagues, a wealthy elite containing Toulouse, Stade Francais, Biarritz and Perpignan now qualify every year en bloc. And they have become au fait about playing away.
Yet Munster have arguably assembled more strength in depth than ever, and though Leinster have been shorn of several linchpins, they seem refreshed and regrouped.
And a more indigenous Ulster have gelled up front with the arrival of Justin Harrison.
Three blocks of back-to-back weekends tend not to suit the Irish teams as much, but at least this season there's a few Celtic League weekends leading into them, rather than going in cold from the autumn internationals.
Munster still look the best of the Irish. They have the nous, the pedigree, the honesty, the umbilical connection with a huge support base and, as ever, the motivation.
When Eddie Butler, a former Welsh international, employed by English television and print media, and fluent Francophile, nominated 10 highs in the European Cup's history a year ago, six of them involved Munster.
Admittedly, much of them have culminated in heartbreak, but that doesn't deter them.
" 'Cos it's a lot of fun getting there," reasons Anthony Foley, "do you know what I mean? There's a lot of big days getting there. You can never take away Toulouse in Bordeaux - I think people who were at that game will never forget it - and the people who were in Thomond Park the day we beat Sarries, or the miracle match (against Gloucester last year).
"I start conversations like this with people and we end up with 20. It's a great competition, and it gives you great memories, and you don't want to be scarred by the one or two that got away. Sometimes you look back on the video of the Northampton game as the one we should have put away. But there's a lot of enjoyment in doing what we do, and the fun comes in winning."
Indeed, Foley - like Mick Galwey before him - echoes Martin Luther King, in seeing the mountain top, even if he's not sure he'll get there with them one day. "Munster will win the Heineken Cup at some stage, I just don't know if I'll be there."
Foley is a living, breathing, playing European Cup legend, having played more games (67 of Munster's 68 ties) than anyone else in the competition's history.
"It's incredible the way the ERC have taken the competition to the next level, and the way everyone has bought into it. I think the competition will get bigger, but the problem with that is that it gets more difficult to win."
Come Saturday, May 20th, at the Millennium Stadium, the winners are again most likely to come from the French heavyweights, with the three-time Toulouse thrillseekers favourites, and unfortunately Munster's pool rivals Sale look the pick of the English. Expectations shouldn't be too high.
Yet, it's hard not to start out a little giddily.
EUROPEAN CUP 2005/6
Outright betting
4/1 Biarritz Olympique, Toulouse
7/1 Stade Francais, London Wasps
8/1 Leicester Tigers
10/1 Perpignan
12/1 Sale Sharks
14/1 Munster
20/1 Leinster
25/1 Bourgoin
50/1 Bath, Saracens, Castres Olympique
66/1 Clermont Auvergne, Ulster, Cardiff Blues
80/1 Others
