Gerry Thornley/On Rugby: The last rites have still to be performed on the English domestic season and, most punishingly of all, on the French season, where Toulouse still have potentially another six games over five weekends to play.
Their end-of-June championship finale will only be six weeks old when a new, expanded, 30-game league plus play-offs begins in mid-August. It sounds more Irish than Ireland. They'll be starting next season's pre-season before finishing this season, so to speak.
After the feast to end all feasts the 2004-2005 season has been, rugby has surely never had more appeal globally, or here at home. Most of all, history will have to recall it as England's year, the season in which they won the World Cup with virtually the game's final play in the last minute of extra time, and fittingly two of their clubs won Europe's most prized trophies with last-ditch plays as well.
Imagine, for a second, if Ronan O'Gara had landed a last-minute drop goal to clinch a World Cup final, and this had been followed by Connacht winning the Parker Pen European Challenge Cup and Munster the Heineken European Cup final over the weekend as Harlequins and Wasps did.
Watching Robert Howley's match-winning dramatics, Sky Sports' freeze frame conclusively proved the ball had brushed the touchline and therefore the try should not have been given. However, the television match official's role concerns solely the "grounding" of the ball and latterly foul play, and a decision the ball was out of play could only have been made by Donal Courtney.
In fairness to Courtney, he did not have the benefit of a freeze frame. But the TMO should be allowed to make full use of the facilities at his disposal, as Huw Watkins did at the behest of Paul Honiss when determining whether Ben Cohen was still being held in the tackle by Gordon D'Arcy during his secondary movement to ground the ball at Twickenham. In breach of refereeing protocol maybe, but good refereeing.
One felt sorry for Toulouse, for few teams have ever played better in defeat, but Wasps' name was clearly on that cup, and over the season no sub-test team has scaled greater heights in Europe.
Likewise, Ireland deserved that break against England for they were the better team on the day, and to beat the world champions at Twickenham en route to a Triple Crown was a stand-out achievement in a memorable campaign. Munster and Connacht reaching European semi-finals, along with Ulster coming within a game of a Celtic League and Cup double, hardly constitutes a failure either. The same, alas, cannot be said for Leinster, which looks an absolute shambles.
In a difficult balancing act for the Union, they are desperately striving to keep up with the Englands of this world, and team Ireland looks in reasonably good nick for the next few years - if a little thin in key positions. Presuming Humphreys will have retired by 2007, then as things stand Ireland will be one injury away from a crisis at outhalf, and meantime Andy Dunne is at Harlequins, Jeremy Staunton is heading there and Paddy Wallace languishes on the bench at Ulster.
As the Wasps-Munster semi-final highlighted, in terms of facilities, expertise and structures, the provinces are battling against the odds as well as the leading French and English club sides. As for the Irish clubs, they have the bleakest-looking future of all, and it seems they will have to save themselves.
TEAM OF THE SEASON: England. Everybody would give their eye teeth for the World Cup.
GLOBAL COACH OF THE SEASON: Clive Woodward. A bit of a misnomer maybe, in that "Sir Clive" may be more a manager than a coach, but contrary to what George may believe, you don't "fluke" a world cup. They'd been the best team in the world for two years and Woodward had been chief architect of their global pre-eminence.
GLOBAL PLAYER OF THE SEASON: Lawrence Dallaglio. Long after Johnson, Wilkinson, et al, have mostly given up the ghost on this most punishing of years, somehow "Lol" is still going strong. He plays on the edge of the laws for sure, but he's some winner.
IRISH COACH OF THE SEASON: Eddie O'Sullivan. The World Cup was ultimately an anti-climactic effort, which Keith Wood's emotional farewell slightly glossed over, but there's little arguing with a first Triple Crown in 19 years and another Six Nations runners-up position. Whatever else happens, O'Sullivan will always have his tactical coup over the reigning world champions at their impregnable fortress.
IRISH PLAYER OF THE SEASON: Paul O'Connell. No disrespect to Gordon D'Arcy, who was a sensation and player of the tournament in the Six Nations, but in deference to his fellow players and public, may one suggest that memories are a tad short. The mighty O'Connell was on most people's player-of-the-tournament list in the World Cup, ditto the Six Nations, and was a leading man in Munster's charge to the European Cup semi-finals. More Johnsonesque now than Johnson, and, ye gods, there may be better to come.
TRY OF THE SEASON: A multitude of contenders, but given its context it has to be Ireland's try at Twickenham when Girvan Dempsey slid in by the corner flag. The product of good preparation, team play and individual skills.
UNDERACHIEVERS OF THE SEASON: It can only be Leinster.
WISH FOR 2004-2005: That Leinster come good.
TOURNAMENT OF THE SEASON: The European Cup. For all the organisation, colour and drama of the World Cup, and despite Ireland's Triple Crown and the Six Nations finale between France and England, the Heineken Cup consistently reached parts of the rugby community and the soul the others didn't, as well as providing more unpredictability and truly memorably matches.
MATCH OF THE SEASON: Munster 32 Wasps 37. Occasion, colour, noise, drama, ebb and flow, controversy, tries, points galore. You couldn't have scripted it. Pity about the result.
CLUB OF THE SEASON: Shannon. Sure, they may bring players from outside the parish and even the city, but in that and much else they are the template for what other clubs should strive to be.
