After the RWC comes the EDF. It doesn't quite carry the same resonance, but the domestic game in England should enjoy a spin-off from the national side's unexpected strong showing in the World Cup.
At least the planning this year is better than 2003 when, a week after winning the World Cup, many England players found themselves in Premiership action. English clubs have never shown much affection for the EDF Energy Cup, using it as a means to give squad players a run, and only the World Cup dirt-trackers will be involved this weekend.
Not that there will be any chance of a prolonged rest for England's starting line-up with the Heineken Cup starting in a couple of weeks. Players in Australia and New Zealand are on holiday, apart from those who have succumbed to the financial lure of Europe, while South Africa are in party mood before gathering for a short tour of Europe at the end of the month.
The EDF Energy Cup looks the most disposable part of a clotted season, but it is financially lucrative because of the television deal with BBC Wales. The prospect of the Welsh regions clashing with the likes of Leicester, Wasps and Gloucester, even when not at full strength, offers far more of a tang than Magners League fixtures against Connacht, Glasgow and Ulster. For Wales, the fixtures are a reminder of how things used to be and how the Welsh Rugby Union blew an opportunity eight years ago when they turned down an offer of having five teams in an Anglo-Welsh league.
Five clubs was an insult, the WRU cried. It now runs four professional sides, and you could fill one with players not qualified to wear the three feathers. Wales looks covetously at the Guinness Premiership, scornful of the overall style of play, but envious of its commercial appeal and the regular sell-out notices put outside grounds. Again, it is an example of how it used to be in Wales: it was little more than 20 years ago that fans, locked out of the Arms Park for Cardiff's friendly against Pontypool on a Wednesday night, stormed the turnstiles and thousands charged in for free. The problem now is keeping supporters in.
While England's review of the World Cup amounts to a head-scratching campaign - how on earth did we make it to the final? - Wales are sifting through their well-thumbed dictionary of excuses. A favourite is that the Magners League does not provide the necessary intensity for players because the Irish do not take it seriously and only play their national squad players in derbies, but it does not wash when you look at the problems facing the likes of Tonga, Fiji, Samoa, Georgia and many others going into the World Cup.
Those countries showed what can be achieved when players have a positive charge. Fiji went into their quarter-final against South Africa with a tight-head prop, who found himself up against the vastly experienced Os du Randt, from a third division French club. Imagine Wales in the same position: "How did you expect us to win when we had a prop from the third division?" Fiji got on with it. Forty per cent of their players were home-based and facilities on the island are such that few clubs own a scrummaging machine. They are not paid because the game there has no money. The Magners League for them would amount to bread from heaven.
It is all relative. Wales should not be indulging in excuses having, once again, squandered their resources. The players were not good enough. They did not react quickly enough to changing circumstances. The sight of Dwayne Peel going off and being replaced at scrum-half by Mike Phillips, with the pair neither sharing a glance let alone shaking hands, was indicative of a malaise which had nothing to do with what competitions the players appeared in. As so many emerging nations showed in the World Cup, the answer lies within.
Dash for cash must be resisted
The structure of the game in Europe always gets a whipping in times of failure, and a conference being held in Woking next month under the auspices of the International Rugby Board will debate the question as to whether a global season would be feasible. It would allow tournaments to be played in blocks rather than be interlinked, but the three days will highlight a growing contradiction in the sport.
The southern hemisphere unions are always the major proponents for change, as has been seen recently in the introduction of new laws, more about which next week, but Europe is rugby union's financial centre. Australia and New Zealand are chasing the dollar, willing to strip the sport of elements that make it unique in the dash for cash. They are prostituting themselves and the logical upshot of their manoeuvres will be the end of the World Cup, with an annual tournament played between the major nations. They should be resisted.
