2011 - What can we expect next year?
It is a World Cup year - a time when nothing else really matters. Or does it? rugby365.com editor Jan de Koning takes a look at what we can expect from 2011... gazing into his crystal ball along the way.
Yes, there are a host of tournaments - starting with the Six Nations in February - that will entertain us royally. However, the undoubted crescendo is the World Cup tournament in New Zealand.
The event starts in Auckland with the hosts, the All Blacks, taking on Tonga on September 9. The final will be played in Auckland on Sunday October 23, at the revamped Eden Park.
The World Cup is the premier international rugby union competition, a four-yearly event, where the winners are awarded the William Webb Ellis Cup. The tournament is one of the largest international sporting events in the world - surpassed in scale only by the Soccer World Cup, the Summer Olympics, and the Tour de France.
But let's look at what awaits us before we get to New Zealand 2011! (In fact, tomorrow we will carry an in-depth World Cup preview.)
The Six Nations is a final dress-rehearsal for the northern hemisphere's big guns. They won't be playing any mid-year Tests against their southern hemisphere rivals, and apart from a few pre-World Cup warm-up matches, the Six Nations is their last chance ahead of the World Cup to show who would challenge the top three teams in the world - New Zealand, Australia and South Africa - for World Cup bragging rights.
France, since their Six Nations Grand Slam in March 2010, have flopped spectacularly.
They had more than 40 points put past them by South Africa and Argentina in June, before their humiliation was completed with a 16-59 - home - defeat against Australia in November. They have the potential to dominate again, but it will take a recovery of epic proportions in 2011.
Ireland's decline has not been as dramatic, but they still look a shadow of the outfit that won the Grand Slam in 2009 and while they'll be competitive, they don't look like winning overall honours.
Then there is England, who looked to be on the up with a record 35-18 win over Australia, before being brought down to earth by South Africa. They look to be an improving team, but if they want to challenge for overall honours in 2011, they need to become more consistent.
Wales, Scotland and Ireland may well remain in the also-rans category. Yes, Scotland did beat the Boks in November, but that was in the most inhospitable weather conditions and you won't see a Bok team perform that badly very often.
Wales, for all their endeavour, as well as Italy, just don't have the depth.
rugby365.com Six Nations prediction: France and England will contest the championship, while Ireland will produce one major upset before ultimately falling short.
The revamped and expanded Super Rugby season gets underway on February 18 and concludes with the Grand Final on July 9. The burning question is how the mercenaries of Melbourne will fare in their debut year?
The change in format means there is an increase in overall matches from 94 to 125 (an increase of 33 percent).
That's a 50 percent increase in the length of the season in non-World Cup years - from 16 weeks to 24 weeks; a 31 percent increase in the length of the season in World Cup years - from 16 weeks to 21 weeks. Forty Super Rugby regular season matches will be played in each country each season as opposed to 26 in Australia under the (old) Super 14 structure and 32 or 33 in South Africa and New Zealand and there will be 20 regular season local derbies in each country as opposed to six in Australia, 10 in South Africa and 10 in New Zealand under the Super 14 format. In all, half of all regular season matches will be local derbies and each team will play 12 of its 16 regular-season games within its own country - with only four matches overseas.
Then there is the expanded finals series - which sees the top team in each conference automatically advance to the finals in positions one, two or three (depending on their individual competition points totals); while the other three teams to advance those with the highest number of competition points outside of the conference winners - the teams qualifying in fourth, fifth and sixth coming from any conference and they could all come from one conference.
In Week One of the finals the teams qualifying first and second will rest; the third-placed team, as a conference winner, will host the sixth-placed team in a sudden-death qualifier, the fourth-placed team will host the fifth-placed team in another sudden-death qualifier. The two winners will play the top two sides in the semifinals the following week and the winners of the semis will meet in the final. (Does that make any sense to you?!)
rugby365.com Super Rugby prediction: You have to look at the defending Super Rugby champion Bulls as one of the pre-season favourites, as they still have most of the players that won them the championship for the past two years. They will be challenged in a very competitive South African conference by the Stormers and the Sharks. The seven-time champion Crusaders will again spearhead the New Zealand challenge, with the Hurricanes and Blues their most likely challengers. The Reds may well continue their revival and along with the Waratahs and Brumbies are likely to dominate the Australian conference. I'm afraid there awaits plenty of heartache for the tournament newcomers, the Melbourne Rebels.
The Heineken Cup is already two-thirds through the league stages, but like most northern hemisphere club competitions the fractured nature of the event means the final will take place only on May 21.
The next best 'best losers' - that do not qualify for the Heineken Cup knockout phases - then enter the second tier competition, the European Challenge Cup, where they have another go at collecting silverware and, ultimately, securing Heineken Cup qualification for the next season.
We have two more rounds of league action to come in January, then another long break before the play-offs start in April - culminating in the final the next month. This is interspersed with domestic competitions like the Aviva Premiership, the Magners League and the Anglo-Welsh Cup.
rugby365.com European Cup prediction: The 2009/10 champions Toulouse, who beat Biarritz 21-19 in an all-French Final and have won the competition a record four times, are again well-placed as the leading team in Pool Six. Munster, Leicester Tigers and Wasps - all two-time winners - are sitting fairly pretty in their pools with two rounds to go. You can't look past Northampton Saints, Leinster, Toulon, Biarritz and Scarlets as the other teams likely to make the play-offs and then anything can happen. What price on another all-French Heineken Cup Final?
The Tri-Nations, because it is a World Cup year, has been truncated and runs from July 23 to August 27 - 'just' six Tests.
Because there are no tours by the northern hemisphere countries, this event now serves as the SANZAR trio's final dress-rehearsal before the World Cup.
With just two weeks between the final Tri-Nations game and the opening match of the World Cup, this may well play into the hands of the southern hemisphere outfits. Each team will play four really tough Tests in a six-week period. They will also play in New Zealand, giving the public a taste of the big event.
rugby365.com Tri-Nations prediction: Following their dominant form in 2010, you can't look past New Zealand as the early favourites. They will look to fine-tune the gameplan that saw them dominate the game. Australia and South Africa's erratic form has done little to reduce the expectations of them being the only teams to challenge the All Blacks - at the World Cup, that is. In the Tri-Nations much will depend on the approach of the three teams - whether they have their selections sorted or are still experimenting. New Zealand looks a good bet for a morale-boosting Tri-Nations win.
The traditional and long-standing domestic competitions - like the English Premiership, Celtic League, Currie Cup and New Zealand's NPC - will definitely take a back seat in 2011.
* In Part Two, tomorrow; Jan de Koning looks at the prospects of all the World Cup candidates.