The sin of gluttony

The Six Nations: The best thing we could do for the coming Six Nations championship, starting here and now, is not to mention that it's World Cup year. Oops. Done it already.

But moving on anyway, the crown jewel of the European game is back which, though they wouldn't whisper it south of the equator, has much more variety and tradition going for it than the sometimes repetitive diet of the Tri-Nations.

Yet they keep messing around with the crown jewel, don't they? And ironically, no one seems to be messing around with it more than the BBC, whose cameras return to provide coverage following the years of BSkyB control.

So, for the delectation of the viewers, we have 15 games, scattered over five weekends, but compressed into a shorter, seven-week timeframe.

After gorging on such an unprecedented if fast-food fix, some armchair punters are liable to resemble Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke after he's burped down his 50th egg.

Not alone has the Six Nations long since forsaken the splendid isolation of January, we also have Sunday kick-offs and evening kick-offs, and who cares about the paying punters. To see Ireland's opening two games, supporters are obliged to travel to Edinburgh and Rome on successive weekends, with games only six days apart.

Sunday games also dilute the flavour of Six Nations occasions, for - contrary to popular perceptions - some rugby supporters actually do have to go to work on Monday mornings. Nor do they all have bottomless pockets.

The Welsh-English game this day fortnight will kick off at 5.0, and the refusal to alter the evening train times from Cardiff will seriously discommode English supporters. But what they hell, they only pay in to watch. He who pays the television piper calls the tune.

However, this raises the question as to whether the sponsors are getting value for money, for if you think about it they may be getting the same number of games in the same locations and even more television coverage, but such is the continuous media presence of the championship that in many ways they're losing three weeks of exposure.

Ireland coach Eddie O'Sullivan, for one, makes the interesting point that "commercially I think it's a bad move in that if I was a sponsor of the Six Nations I reckon I'd get more value for my buck over 10 weeks than I would over seven."

Then there's the question: how much can one have of a good thing? A feast of 15 games in seven weeks might be dangerously close to saturation point. By the end of that little lot, O'Sullivan reckons, "the public will have had their bellyfull of rugby, whereas over 10 weeks that was more palatable. The interesting thing about the Six Nations was the week after was all about what had happened and what was going to happen the next week. That's all over now. What's happened will be over in a day and what's going to happen will be condensed as well."

Less time to pause for breath and move on swiftly to the next dish.

Bad as that all is for those of us watching, spare a thought for those playing. O'Sullivan is not alone, and is better placed than most, in reckoning that it takes most rugby players about four or five days to recover fully, both mentally and physically, from the intensity of Six Nations matches.

It's also a quality thing, for as O'Sullivan says: "I'm not even sure we can sustain it in terms of the intensity of the games. We might find, at the end of the day, that there will be six very tired teams on the last weekend of the Six Nations."

The increased toll and reduced recovery time for injuries will also mean a greater test of resources, which ought to favour those with bigger resources. As if England and France needed any further help.

Le Crunch in Twickenham next Saturday, already spiced up by some inflammatory remarks by Imanol Harinorduquy (not that it needed a few spoonfuls of tabasco, with some mustard and chilli seasoning) is widely regarded as an irritatingly premature grand slam decider for the umpteenth year in a row. (That scenario conveniently ignores that Ireland finished second two years ago, and had European Cup or most other modern-day rules applied then they would actually have been crowned champions.)

On the face of it then, the jockeying for positions will pretty much be completed on the opening round next weekend: England v France for the championship and Grand Slam, Scotland v Ireland for best of the rest, and Italy v Wales for the wooden spoon.

It would be good for the championship if the Italians won a match. They've already enough wooden spoons to supply a squad of rugby players with spaghetti bolognese.

But at the business end of things, regardless of the result from Le Crunch next Saturday, the expected ritual Twickenham slaughters of Italy and, perhaps, Scotland, will certainly seem anti-climactic after that. So it would be nice too to see this predictable order of things shaken up. For starters, someone other than England and France winning the championship.

Realistically, that probably means only Ireland, who haven't won a championship since 1985, given that the big two have to come to Dublin, while team Ireland and the four proud provinces have rarely appeared in ruder health.

The bookies have the pecking order only slightly changed from last year, with England 2 to 5 favourites and France 5 to 2 on the premise that England do the entertaining this year. Yet given both have still to negotiate Lansdowne Road thereafter, France are better value at those odds, while Ireland might be worth a modest punt at 8 to 1. They actually might be.

The bottom line: surprises would be wonderful. And don't mention the, er, um, global thing. I said it once but I think I got away with it.