MAGNERS LEAGUE NEW SEASON: As top-four play-offs are introduced to the Magners League, GERRY THORNLEYexamines how the changes may affect the competition

THE ENGLISH Premiership put its best foot forward this weekend despite the sordid and lingering whiff of Bloodgate and the Bath drug scandal, not to mention a flight of Wild Geese-like proportions to France.

There, they have already played four rounds of an over-crowded season in the Top 14, which at times resembles a circus, with 217 non-French registered players and where Racing Metro pay Sebastien Chabal €1 million per year. The rugby’s actually been a pretty lousy whistle feast too.

To comparatively little fanfare, and over-shadowed a tad on the weekend that’s in it, the Magners League kicks off, the same league that provided the bulk of the Lions squad (and no less than 10 of any of the three starting Test sides), three of the last four Grand Slam winners, three of the last four Heineken Cup winners and the last five Triple Crown winners (yes, five!).

This season, its ninth, the league is liable to be tougher to win than ever, or easier – depending on your viewpoint. For the first time, and not before time, there will be top four play-offs to decide the champions.

Thus, the team that finishes top will be obliged to win another two matches to get their mits on the trophy – though at least this ensures a truer climax than was the case last season, when Munster were declared champions two nights before they played Leinster in the Heineken Cup courtesy of the Ospreys’ failure to pick up maximum points at home to the Dragons.

The play-offs will sustain hope into mid-table until the last few rounds that they can win the league. The flip side of this coin is that the team finishing fourth can squeeze in the back door and, by dint of winning two cup ties, win a “league”.

The fear also lurks that there will be less pressure on the big guns to finish top of the pile and, amid clear signals that the Munster and Leinster frontliners will not be available as much as in recent years, thus the level of intensity will be reduced week to week. Furthermore, if the big guns have one eye on Europe come April, one or more of the lesser lights without Euro aspirations could spring into the play-offs.

Nonetheless, while the pressure to finish top is not quite so acute, the advantages of finishing first (and second) are manifold, both financially and in a playing sense.

For example, were play-offs in operation in the competition last season, Munster (first) and Edinburgh (second) would have hosted the Ospreys (fourth) and Leinster (third), with Munster then likely to have hosted the final in Thomond Park had they won their semi-final.

The usual suspects still look like being the prime contenders to lift the trophy this season, as the league increasingly is divided between the “haves” and the “have nots”.

In terms of facilities, stadia, support base, budgets and playing base, a “Big Four” of Munster, Leinster, the Ospreys and Cardiff has gradually emerged in recent times, with the Blues now emulating the aforementioned trio in moving to a new home, the 26,500 Cardiff City Stadium, hosting Edinburgh in one of tonight’s opening three games.

That said, the Scarlets struggled to fill the Parc y Scarlets (15,020 capacity) last season, and last season’s eroding attendances at the Ospreys’ Liberty Stadium are a salutary warning to all in these recessionary times.

However, the Scots, the Dragons and Connacht are comparatively poor relations, with Ulster’s season tickets also down this year despite a new stand. They hope to have a redeveloped, 15,000-capacity Ravenhill in two to three years but, as with everyone else, the key to their fortunes will be results.