Alan Phillips, the manager of Wales, is talking positively about the quality of pork in Poland but is keeping an eye on Warren Gatland. "Mustn't let him get bored, see," says the one former hooker of the other, the coach about to embark on his fifth Six Nations with Wales. "He can go an interview too far and that's when he may say something daft."
Coach Gatland seems happy enough, doing the rounds at the launch of the championship at the Hurlingham Club in west London. Perhaps he is enjoying a day break from Gdansk and the snow that is keeping his team off the pitch. Perhaps he is just feeling good about the game, even if he must face Ireland in Dublin in a state a bit shy of optimal.
Shane Williams has retired and Rhys Priestland, Gethin Jenkins, Alun Wyn Jones and Luke Charteris are injured. Danny Lydiate's ankle and Jamie Roberts's knee make them doubtful starters and Huw Bennett will probably drop to the bench as Matthew Rees returns at hooker. In total Wales will be eight down on the starting XV that beat Ireland in the quarter-final of the World Cup 22-10 – Wales at their best.
Since that hot spot in Wellington Wales have lost three times, to France in the semi-final and to Australia twice. The Welsh regions have generally lost – the Blues apart – in the Heineken Cup. That is a lot of losing and prompts a lot of questions.
Will James Hook be given a chance to atone for his poor series of games in New Zealand? He has been playing at 10 lately, even if Perpignan remain at the wrong end of the French Top 14. Can Ashley Beck carry his Ospreys form into the Welsh camp and, from there, into a partnership with Jonathan Davies in the centre? Do Wales have to worry so much about the loss of Roberts when they also have Scott Williams as a midfield option?
Gatland, by picking Gavin Henson and the 18-year-old wing Harry Robinson in his first, fat squad, seemed to make the point that the form of the four Welsh regions is irrelevant. By going to Poland again he seems to be putting as much distance between his players and the rugby of home. He trusts only what happens in his camps, and if the pork is good – and Adam Jones fit – Wales may yet be successful again.
Ireland's approach seems very different. They have come to terms with life without Brian O'Driscoll. Leinster certainly have and there is a case for pitching Fergus McFadden and Gordon D'Arcy together in the centre for the country as they are for their province. Keith Earls for Munster against Northampton looked equally at ease with the notion of stepping into the mighty O'Driscoll's boots.
Earls or McFadden; Donnacha Ryan or Donncha O'Callaghan starting in the second row? Jonathan Sexton or Ronan O'Gara at fly-half? Has Andrew Trimble forced his way in through his form for Ulster? Those may be the selection choices for Declan Kidney. He will have suffered worse headaches in his rugby life. Otherwise he can line up the team that had looked pretty damned good until they faced Wales at the World Cup – a team, as Paul O'Connell has already warned, that will be out to put the record straight on the first weekend.
If, on the other hand, you want to see the irresistible influence of the individual, Biarritz are a different outfit altogether when Dimitri Yachvili and Imanol Harinordoquy are playing. Of course, they form a mini-team of their own at Nos8 and 9 but, whatever else they are, they are indispensable.
They also bring a certain restlessness with them and were spiritual leaders of the French World Cup mutiny. Marc Lièvremont wanted France to play with a greater audacity; Yachvili and Harinordoquy espoused the Biarritz way: territory before adventure. The differences simmered for ages before the factions divided irreconcilably in New Zealand.
Only France could take a team sport that simply cannot function with even the merest flicker of disharmony and use division as a tool, bitterness as a fuel. Only France could be both rubbish at all stages and unlucky at the last not to win the World Cup.
Philippe Saint-André, France's new coach, has decided to stick with the mutineers. With the exception of Alexis Palisson – the wing is to be replaced, presumably, by Julien Malzieu – he seems to have opted for more of the same strange brew rather than take a bucket of disinfectant to the below decks. Anything could happen and will. If Ireland are guaranteed to be strong, France are dead certs to be extraordinary in one way or another.
Things should not be different at all for Italy. Their new coach, Jacques Brunel, who had good times with Auch, Pau, Colomiers and Perpignan, and interesting times as assistant to Bernard Laporte with the French team between 2001 and 2007, has already done the analysis on his new charges and decided that Italy will change for the better, with a more balanced set of options, but perhaps not yet. His job is to make them contenders, but not this year.
For the moment the familiar image may persist, that of the Italian pack churning out loads and loads of slow ball and Sergio Parisse taking on five nations on his own thereafter. Fabio Semenzato should have a lively contest with Edoardo Gori for the No9 shirt and everyone else will tackle and work on their liberation at some unspecified point in the future.
And yet of course, they could all have their moment, just as they did last year when they lit up Rome and the championship by beating France. It was the sort of heart-warming thriller that the World Cup never produced. On that note it is dispiriting to see no changes in the directives coming from the International Rugby Board's bunker of authority to the referees. They will be applying zero tolerance to the same tackle and breakdown areas that they thought they were targeting in New Zealand. Having done their worst at the World Cup – Bryce Lawrence, Craig Joubert and Alain Rowland were forced into arbitrating by predetermined dictate, rather than by the application of common sense – the referees have been given every opportunity to mess up the Six Nations.
Anyway Italy may brighten up the championship at the Stadio Olimpico in Rome on the second weekend for no other reason than England being there. On every single level the reigning champions are up against it. They have been unlucky with the fixture list, with a pair of away games to welcome Stuart Lancaster to the bruising demands of international competition. The new coach has then lost Tom Wood, Courtney Lawes, Toby Flood and Manu Tuilagi to injury.
He is a caretaker coach and one cannot say that the Rugby Football Union, in announcing the appointment of the headhunters to find a successor – and by the way Stuart can apply if he wants to – have gone out of their way to encourage any full-time dreams he may harbour. The only help came from Andy Robinson, who once knew how unpleasantly warm the coaching seat of England could become. Now Scotland coach, he applied "arrogant" to a few England players on the occasion of their defeat of his team at the World Cup, the word presumably advanced only after some serious work on the measurement of the threat of backfire against the value of stoking Scottish grievances.
There seems to be a feeling that the chances of having the English front five make him regret every syllable of every jibe are much reduced either because England are committed to a less formidable style or through the simple lack of enforcers wearing white. It could be that England are going through a period when the style of the Aviva Premiership does not marry with progress in the Heineken Cup, never mind the international game.
Given the intolerance of the officials and the caution that accompanies every brand new start of a four-year cycle, this could be a Six Nations for cruelty before brilliance. It will not be boring and with luck nobody will say anything daft but it could pass off with counting the victims rather than hailing great deeds.
