IT is a long way from the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews to the Ingwenyama Resort, White River, South Africa.
Around 8000 miles according to Google Maps, but considerably longer if you spend most of the journey in seat 48K, squeezed in beside a 22-stone Afrikaner with halitosis issues.
This is one of the pleasures of flying that airlines are rather coy about, just as they are about the fact their pilots seem to be the only ones who enjoy a decent kip on planes these days. But then, I suspect their market research people have told them that fronting up these things might not be the cleverest move.
"Good morning sir, and welcome to Icarus Airways. Would you like a window or an aisle seat today?"
"Oh, I don't know. What do you suggest?"
"Well, many passengers seem to enjoy sitting next to fat, smelly blokes, and it just so happens we've got one on the flight today."
"Splendid. Put me right there."
Yet as far apart as they are, St Andrews and White River formed a curious bond a few months ago. They were the respective venues for the media briefings with which Mark Dodson, chief executive of the Scottish Rugby Union, began and ended the 2012/13 season. So forget about the 8000 miles, and focus instead on the eight months that had elapsed between the two gatherings.
Long enough, you might think, to sort out a crisis that threatened to engulf European rugby. A year ago it was already clear that the clubs of France and England were at loggerheads with European Rugby Cups Ltd, the body that runs and organises the Heineken Cup. In short, they wanted a bigger say in the running of the tournament, a leaner competitive structure, and a qualification system that subjected Celtic and Italian sides to the same pressures that they had to endure.
Dodson, as an ERC board member, favoured the status quo. However, as a pragmatist he also acknowledged some movement would probably be required. The suggestion in St Andrews was a deal would have to be struck. Compromise would be needed to secure the future of one of the world's best tournaments.
Rugby's focus moved on in the following months: to autumn Tests, domestic championships, the RBS 6 Nations and the looming Lions tour to Australia. Everyone rather forgot about the Heineken Cup and all the posturing and shenanigans that had taken it to the brink. There was an unspoken assumption that things would be sorted out, sealed with a few handshakes and a vigorous assault on the ERC gin cabinet at its suite of Dublin offices.
Except that it did not happen. In fact, as Dodson candidly admitted at the White River briefing in June, pretty much nothing happened last season. The Barbarians of France were at the gates, the English tanks were on the lawn, and nobody had seemed particularly bothered about the danger to a competition that had transformed the landscape of European Rugby since its inception in 1995. Things, they seemed to think, would sort themselves out.
Some might still have been thinking that way when the French and English sabres started rattling again early last month. And there will be those who tell you that the announcement of a break away tournament - the Rugby Champions Cup - is still just a piece of bluster. The complacency is jaw-dropping.
I have huge sympathy for the predicament facing ERC, but the fact is they have been asleep at the wheel for the past year (and more). If a compromise is to be reached - the likelihood diminishes daily - the least it should involve is a revamp of ERC's unwieldy, self-serving structure. If it survives in any form, it should certainly be moved out of Dublin, if only to signal a separation from the cosy, old-world officialdom of the International Rugby Board, which is also based in the city.
Yet the English, who have been far more bullish than their French counterparts, have been rather disingenuous in their bellyaching about the advantages enjoyed by the RaboDirect PRO12's Celtic and Italian sides. The English would like to portray their Aviva Premiership as a ruthless meritocracy, but the table of today looks similar to the top tier of the old Courage League championship of 1994/95, the season before the arrival of professionalism. Of the 10 clubs there in 1995, seven are still in the Premiership. In their sink-or-swim world, it seems that the majority have been paddling along quite nicely.
And what of the claim that it is possible for PRO12 sides to pick and choose which tournaments to focus on - domestic or European - while English clubs have had to fight on two fronts? It seems to have escaped them that Leinster and Munster managed to be competitive in both events. Not that they need to look across the Irish Sea, as Leicester did back-to-back domestic/European doubles in 2001 and 2002, a feat matched by Wasps in 2004.
This season's Heineken Cup has its Scottish launch in Glasgow today. I still believe that there will be a pan-European rugby tournament next season as well, but the more I watch rugby officials at work and the more I listen to their spurious and selfish arguments, the more my faith is tested.
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