There was never any likelihood of this being a quiet home birth. Johnny Watterson attended the launch of the Six Nations Championship in London yesterday.
Given the unfolding of the World Cup last autumn and the winter now blowing through the wounded rugby nations of the Southern Hemisphere, Europe's six strongest rugby tribes were entitled to rub their hands after all these years of looking up to Down Under.
The Six Nations Championship yesterday swooped into central London, the crack troops of the campaign embedded for media consumption and British group Coldplay chiming away in the background as highlights of last year's event were replayed on a giant screen at the back of the congress centre.
Around the floor large collections of journalists craned over tables where players and coaches spoke of the courses they are plotting through this season's tournament.
England's was straight-forward enough. Retention. Wales are expecting a mini-renaissance, while Scotland appear to be getting there, but not this season. France respect everyone but see themselves in a winner-takes-all clash against England in Stade de France on the last day of the tournament, and Italy will be physical and again full of wild hope.
Ireland, suspended in the stratum between the Anglo-French powerhouses and the rest, will punch above their weight. Team Ireland 2004 are hard to pigeon-hole.
It is, naturally, to be the best Six Nations ever and with echoes of the International Olympic Committee's declarations after each Olympiad, the 2003 championship was judged to have been the best in recent years. Figures backed it up with an average of 58,000 spectators per match and a cumulative figure of over one million fans walking through the turnstiles.
With England lording it over the world of rugby, it was also pointed out this will also be a historic first, the only time since the World Cup was initiated that a Northern Hemisphere team has competed in the Six Nations as world champions. In that light the eyes of the world will more closely scrutinise results in this corner of Europe.
The seven-week blitz of games, a more constricted form of the tournament, is also to remain for another two years while the terrestrial broadcasters in Britain (BBC) and Ireland (RTÉ) will try to spread the game beyond the confines of the six stadiums.
The Archers, a BBC radio programme, which might be as old as the tournament itself, is to have a Six Nations theme, while cooking's sprint event, Ready Steady Cook, is to press-gang a handful of players into turning a plastic bag full of cheap groceries into haute cuisine.
Even Ann Robinson was looking for contestants for her Weakest Link quiz show. "So, you use your head to butt opponents in scrums? Bye, bye." So far none of the goliaths of the game have stepped forward for that one.
The BBC, spearheading the push for rugby, hopes to build on what was a 30 per cent increase in the audience for the competition last year and combined with the heightened interest in the wake of the World Cup has well-founded hopes that this year's competition will be more broadly embraced.
In that respect the almost new England captain, Lawrence Dallaglio, who takes the armband for the third time in his career, should feature prominently and along with coach Clive Woodward drew considerably more attention than the other coaches and captains who attended the launch, including Irish captain Brian O'Driscoll and coach Eddie O'Sullivan, as well as former Leinster and Ireland A coach Matt Williams, now the director of coaching in Scotland.
O'Sullivan, as usual, was saying little so close to Ireland's first match.
"I hope to be able to name Brian (O'Driscoll) on the team on Tuesday. But if I can't, I'll give him up to the last minute (to recover from his hamstring injury). I'll give him that latitude because he is the captain and because of the player he is.
"I know the team in my own head but we have injuries to worry about. Eric (Miller) is gone, David Humphreys's shoulder is sore, Reggie Corrigan and Marcus Horan are both carrying knocks."
O'Driscoll, his streaked yellow swirls poking at his eyes, stretched back in his chair and let the fuss wash over him. Like O'Sullivan, he too was a font of common sense.
"I'm only going to start running tomorrow (today). It is only then that I'll know how I am. Three or four days of running should then sort it out but I won't know that until I try."
Dallaglio, completely surrounded in the huddle, brought with him that Jurassic Park physical immensity that makes him such a regarded figure on the pitch, one who is clearly now arguably the first on Woodward's team, which the coach was at pains to point out would be selected on form.
"If a player is good enough to play and he's 18 years old I'll pick him on the side, just as, if he's 36 years old I'll pick him," he said.
From England's standpoint, the team have again to go out and find the edge that will produce results. A strong start is vital.
"I think with the format pressed into just seven weeks, there is now more importance in getting off to a good start," said Dallaglio. "If we can do that, it should give us a lot of confidence and momentum. So it's very important for the team to come together very quickly and make that good start."
It ended with the noise of the corks being pulled in the lobby. Nothing better to dissolve a media huddle. But all agreed. This Six Nations looked like a bouncing, healthy child.
FIXTURES:
February 14th/15th
Saturday: France v Ireland, 2.0
Saturday: Wales v Scotland, 4.0
Sunday: Italy v England, 3.0
February 21st/22nd
Saturday: France v Italy, 2.0
Saturday: Scotland v England, 5.30
Sunday: Ireland v Wales, 3.0
March 6th/7th
Saturday: Italy v Scotland, 1.30
Saturday: England v Ireland, 4.0
Sunday: Wales v France, 3.0
March 20th/21st
Saturday: Ireland v Italy, 1.30
Saturday: England v Wales, 4.0
Sunday: Scotland v France, 3.0
March 27th
Saturday: Wales v Italy, 2.0
Saturday: Ireland v Scotland, 2.0
Saturday: France v England, 8.0
