It’s always wonderful to be involved in this tournament so much changes season on season but equally so much stays the same

“It’s always wonderful to be involved in this tournament; so much changes season on season but, equally, so much stays the same. The hype and expectation never diminish, no matter how successful or otherwise the teams have been in the warm-up games.”The Welsh have not caused Hastings too many problems in the past – he has finished on the winning side against them seven times in 10 attempts – but the broken cheekbone he suffered during the victory at Murrayfield a decade ago brings back painful memories. (It was, however, far from the worst of Hastings’ injuries: in 1993, he caught the sharp end of Josh Kronfeld’s knee during the Otago-Lions match in Dunedin and surgeons worked for almost five hours to rebuild his face).For all his successes against the Red Dragons, Hastings has never managed to score against them – at least, not in the traditional fashion of grounding the ball over their line. But players of Hastings’ unforgiving stamp chalk up points in all sorts of odd directions and if Scott Gibbs or Allan Bateman, his direct opponents, ends up spreadeagled across the beautifully manicured Edinburgh turf at some point during tomorrow’s frenzy, a hint of professional satisfaction will be evident on the face of a certain Scottish centre.Talking of professionalism, Hastings has adapted to the pressures of full-time rugby with surprising ease. A family and career-minded man, it was not so many months ago that he pronounced himself too long in the tooth to start spending mornings in the gym rather than the office.

The change of mind has been abrupt and complete.”Enthusiasm goes hand in glove with the Hastings name – I think people will credit both myself and my brother Gavin with that much – but in the professional age, enthusiasm is simply not enough. If you want to play at the top level – and I still want to very much indeed – you have to be prepared to do the necessary.”My own rugby situation has improved out of all recognition under the full-time regime. I am no longer under pressure to get back to the office after training, sort whatever needs sorting and then scramble across the city for another session somewhere else. I now have the time to concentrate on the disciplines of the game and, as a result, I believe professionalism will lengthen my rugby career rather than shorten it.”Having embraced the forces of change with such zeal, Hastings now wants to see the power brokers of the European game react similarly. He believes the time-honoured Five Nations format has outgrown its usefulness and is in urgent need of a radical rethink if it is to retain its hold on the sporting imagination.”The Five Nations is unique, but that does not mean it can survive the move to professionalism without a degree of repackaging.

I think on balance that Italy should be brought into the competition to provide new blood and I also believe that the tournament would benefit from a shorter timescale.”Ten weeks is too long. The matches should be played weekly to keep the interest levels high. The quicker all the European nations get together and hammer out a common fixture approach capable of uncluttering the northern hemisphere season once and for all, the better.”. Responding to the clarion calls from a rugby nation at arguably its lowest ebb, the English knight in shining armour rides in to the rescue. Shades of Jack Charlton and all that, whom Brian Ashton has revealed he would like to counsel for insights into the Irish psyche This, though, could be trickier. There is a feeling among Irish rugby folk that Ashton may not quite realise what he is letting himself in for.

Or maybe he does? Hence, perhaps, his ambiguous title of coaching advisor and a short-term contract until the conclusion of the Five Nations.
So then, what exactly is the state of the damsel in distress? On Monday, Ashton assumed control of an under-achieving, ever-changing Irish team low on morale and direction five days before their championship opener against France, whom Ireland have not beaten since 1983.What is more, like his predecessors, he assumes responsibility without full power, being one of five selectors alongside a “hands on” manager in an outmoded, unwieldy management system.All in all, Ashton might be better served talking to one of his predecessors as opposed to Charlton. One of them, Ciaran Fitzgerald, was clearly speaking from bitter experience when commenting on the manner in which the IRFU made Murray Kidd sole scapegoat for this season’s home defeats to Western Samoa, Australia and Italy last week.”I think it was handled very poorly by the IRFU and I also felt that he [Kidd] came out the wrong end of it in that he was part of a committee. There was a manager there who ran the team, there was a selection committee who selected the team. Sure, he was responsible for tactics and the preparation of the side but to single out one guy and say you’re gone and you’re responsible for everything, and everybody else is exonerated, is wrong. It just doesn’t stack up.”It is this responsibility without power which has made Australians Bob Dwyer and John Connolly shy away from IRFU overtures, Dwyer describing the system as “too fragmented”. Even Irish coaches such as Willie Anderson and John O’Driscoll probably would not touch the job in its existing parameters with a proverbial 10-foot pole.”It’s perfectly reasonable for them to give the manager overall responsibility and I have no problem with that.

But I couldn’t be the coach I would want to be under those circumstances,” O’Driscoll says.Significantly, the balance shifted from the coach to the manager after the pre-1991 World Cup dispute between players and the Union. After the World Cup, Noel Murphy inherited Ken Reid’s position as manager and assumed more responsibility and power – which Pat Whelan, the manager and chairman of selectors, retained.Other Irish coaches might not have been so reluctant, had they been asked. But, as was the case when Kidd was appointed 15 months ago and last week, they weren’t. As one of this alienated rump, a former provincial coach, puts it: “What kind of message does this send out to the likes of Davy Haslett [the former Irish schools and under-21 coach now coaching the A side] and other guys supposedly coming through the system?”Meantime, as well as brazenly letting Kidd be the fall guy, the remaining Irish selectors have axed a third of the team beaten by Italy.