SEASON PREVIEW Gerry Thornleylooks forward to a campaign of tests, tours, new rules, new grounds, new coaches and many more intriguing twists and turns

THE 2008-2009 season kicks off this week with the onset of the first round of the Magners League and, given they have just come off a 53-week campaign and have seven weeks of pre-season under their belts, it may come as a moderate relief to the players that the regular season concludes in 34 weeks' time with the Heineken Cup final.

That said, there is the minor little addendum to the season of a Lions tour to South Africa which, for the relatively select few (assuming Ian McGeechan doesn't seek to replicate Sir Clive's expansive selection policy) concludes 40 weeks from now with the third Test in Ellis Park.

As he knows full well, much has changed since Geech guided the Lions to their last Test series success a dozen years ago in South Africa and evidence of this is that he is set to cope with the Heineken Cup final taking place a week before the first tour match.

In other respects, though, the master politician looks to have timed things adroitly again. Whereas Woodward drew the shorter straw with New Zealand - and an All Blacks at one of their mid-World Cup cycle peaks - McGeechan took the midweek side. Now the latter returns to South Africa, and once again the Boks appear to be heading into one of their troughs.

No doubt the possible make-up of the squad and the team will exercise the thoughts of some to perhaps an unhealthy level. All the, at times, bombastic speculation can overshadow one of these four-yearly seasons a tad tediously. So much rugby will be played between now and then, and the ravages of a regular season are almost certain to wreak greater havoc on McGeechan's plans than happened a dozen years ago.

True, the season is ostensibly the exact same as in recent years. Indeed, the calendar is probably now at its most settled state since the game went professional.

The itinerary is pretty much as you'd imagine it to be, with the Six Nations, Heineken Cup and Magners League all in their customary slots.

The Anglo-Welsh Cup still looks like a square peg in a round hole and obliges the Welsh teams to start the season with three games in a week. But complaints about competitions suddenly stopping in mid-stream as they dovetail with each other rather than follow the Southern Hemisphere model by running off in blocks - complaints usually by people who have experienced the latter model - have abated over the years.

While the IRB and other proponents of a dreaded global season will no doubt provoke that debate again, there seems now to be a greater acceptance that this is the way the European game is destined to continue. And, à la football, it has its many pluses. It may be less simplistic, it is assuredly more demanding for the players, but it keeps more ingredients in the melting pot.

For sure, too, with each passing year the game becomes more punishing, and this year even more so, for if there is one thing that is set to be debated even more than putative Lions line-ups it is, of course, those cuddly little ELVs.

If it seems as if the world game is currently operating under an array of different rules that's because, in the IRB's wisdom, it is. Thirteen new laws come into the Northern Hemisphere domain this week in experimental form, and on the evidence of the Super 14 and the ongoing Tri Nations, we can expect teething problems.

We can also expect much more kicking, more counterattacking, more killing the ball, more turnovers, more quick throws and many, many more tap penalties - once haute cuisine, now a staple.

It's not all bad. While it has amounted to a cheat's charter at the breakdown if referees don't crack down, the five-metre defensive line off scrums has reinvented set piece try-scoring moves off that source.

But grappling with them is one thing. With the ball simply in play longer, and more collisions and more tackles, what it has undeniably meant is that fitness and stamina demands on the players have intensified sharply.

When the Southern Hemisphere countries come calling in November, their players and coaches will have had the advantage of playing with the 13 ELVs and more for 10 months, whereas their Northern Hemisphere counterparts will have been acclimatising for a mere two months.

The autumnal window has been given added intrigue by the scrambling for world ranking points and the more favourable World Cup seeding that may come with them in time for the 2011 World Cup draw in early December.

Interest in Ireland's fortunes will be more intense than could have been imagined after the deep scars of the World Cup, thanks to the change in coach and the impressive management-and-coaching ticket Declan Kidney has assembled.

The atmosphere at Croke Park should be a good deal louder than during last season's Six Nations, not least with the game's ultimate drawing card, the All Blacks, in town.

That a redeveloped Thomond Park will also host Ireland's first Test, against Canada, and that Munster will also evocatively welcome the All Blacks there, can only add to the fervour.

Fittingly too, Munster and their proud new home will kick off the Heineken Cup. Munster's remarkable and remorseless road to European glory last season revived the ebbing Irish game at an opportune time and Leinster's Magners League triumph combined to lift spirits after the double whammy of the World Cup and the Six Nations.

Given the game's economic shift to the Northern Hemisphere, the competition will be even more fierce but Irish rugby can approach the new season with two sets of champions in residence.

Meantime, Matt Williams is reviving Ulster and Michael Bradley's Connacht appear better-equipped to try and deliver a fourth province into the Heineken Cup. Less encouraging, long term, is how the IRFU, the club game and the supply of playing and coaching talent are set up in relation to maintaining prosperity.

It's still well worth getting excited again as another campaign looms into view.

Munster losing their customary Saturday tea-time slot for the start of the Heineken Cup is but one example of how television continues to tamper with things though. This season will also mark the advent of the first Friday night Six Nations game, and the final assault on weekends as families know them - Sunday evening matches. Ain't nothing sacred any more?