The toughest sporting event in the world has to be the Vendée Globe round-the-world yacht race. Having spent some time aboard Mike Golding's boat Ecover last summer my eyes were prised open to the sheer mental and physical torture involved in confronting a challenge which spits out world-class sailors like so many orange pips. When the supremely prepared Golding was dismasted just before Christmas, it was proof that even the best can be tossed aside by the whims of cruel seas and savage oceans.
Even the punishing Vendée, though, feels like a relative blip in the calendar compared with the Guinness Premiership. After four months we have only just reached the halfway point in the league campaign, with 11 games gone and another 11 to be played before the end-of-season play-offs. Depending on your perspective, the glass of stout is either half empty or half full but the statisticians have seen enough to predict this will be the closest-fought season on record. Five different clubs have led the table to date, the most since 1999-2000, and picking the winner remains a matter of conjecture rather than comfortably anchored certainty.
Even the defending champions, Wasps, back in eighth place as they were at this stage last year, have not entirely given up the chase. Better than anyone else they understand the Premiership is both a marathon and a sprint, a question of peaking in May having weathered the troughs of midwinter. The prop Phil Vickery described the team's first-half performance against Harlequins on Sunday as the best 40 minutes he had been involved in at club level this season; Quins, it has to be said, were below-par but belief is nine-tenths of the required formula for potential champions. With 48% of this season's results having been decided by seven points or fewer, tenacity is also critical.
So how do the half-term reports read? From where I have been sitting, London Irish have a fine chance not simply of making the last four but finishing top of the heap provided they hang tough in their next six games, starting at Sale Sharks on Friday night and continuing against Gloucester, Harlequins, Bath, Leicester and Wasps. Visits to Stockport, Kingsholm, the Rec and High Wycombe will also show whether the Exiles have the staying power which their head coach, Toby Booth, is convinced they possess, particularly as the grounds firm up. It will be tougher over the Six Nations period, particularly if the Armitage brothers, Delon and Steffon, Nick Kennedy and Shane Geraghty are required by England. Other clubs, however, will be similarly affected and Irish won their three games during the November international window. Their South Sea islands contingent are increasingly reliable men for all seasons, as are the Australian Peter Hewat, the captain, Bob Casey, and the scrum-half Paul Hodgson.
Bath, notwithstanding their narrow defeat to Leicester, also look well placed for a top-four finish and may yet have the all-round power to go all the way if they can secure a home semi-final draw. It is interesting that the departures of Steve Borthwick and Olly Barkley have not obviously weakened them; if anything they look a side of increasing potential rather than a team in decline. Steve Meehan may not be the most vociferous of Premiership coaches but he deserves much credit for the job he has done so far. The trick now is to take that crucial final step.
As for Sale, looking at their remaining fixtures they also seem destined to be in the shake-up, possessing too deep a squad to be distracted by the impending exit of Philippe Saint-André and Sébastien Chabal. The Sharks were extremely ordinary in Montauban, and scoring tries remains an issue away from home, but Sale finally seem to be running into form and will be difficult to stop if their key men stay fit. That leaves five sides potentially chasing one final play-off spot. Gloucester should be favourites but they still have a nasty habit of failing to deliver in the really major games; Leicester and Harlequins have their moments without ever looking as though they are firing on all available cylinders for 80 minutes, while Saracens and Wasps cannot yet be entirely discounted. I have a hunch that Leicester, as they did last season, will edge through as the best of the rest: the Bath result was a big one for them, they will be keen to do the currently absent Heineke Meyer proud and still have Bristol to play twice.
Which leads us, inevitably, to the identity of this season's driftwood. Friday the 13th (of February) looks like being unlucky for someone; it is the night Bristol play host to Newcastle, with the losers almost certainly doomed. It would be tough on Newcastle's hard-working captain, Phil Dowson, but the Falcons are in a worrying tailspin, having not won in the league since September – at home to Bristol. They desperately need Jonny Wilkinson back, with or without his crutches.
Quantum leap in conversation
Talking of Jonny, I sadly missed his discussion with Jarvis Cocker on Radio 4's Today programme on the subject of quantum physics. There is, as Eric Morecambe used to say, no answer to that. Coming soon: Dolly Parton talks to Mark Regan about rocket science.
Intimate tour of pride of Lions
Highlight of the festive period? No contest. Take a bow, Sky Sports, for the inspired decision to broadcast Living with Lions – the unmissable fly-on-the-jockstrap account of the 1997 British Lions tour to South Africa – on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. What strikes you now is the number of impressive individuals among the squad, conclusive proof that the key to a successful tour mostly lies in the initial selection. There also seemed to be a hell of a lot more ball-handling than you would find in modern-day games, and a lot more humour. "There are only two types of rugby player," growled the assistant coach, Jim Telfer. "Honest ones and the rest."
Anyone wondering if a Lions tour is still worth the extra sweat and tears should get the DVD and be instantly inspired.
