On Rugby: The 2003-04 season, it just keeps rumbling along, scarcely pausing for a backwards glance. Great for the spectators, no doubt. As for the players? Well, moving on, as they must . . .

Unseasonable internationals in August; an intense, two-month World Cup campaign; barely a fortnight later the onset of the Heineken European Cup, which picked up again in January, giving way to a congested and more intense Six Nations, before returning again within a fortnight.

When the CEOs of the English Premiership clubs and the first division clubs in the French Championship recently combined to flex their muscles and force the European Cup into a retrograde return to the stop-start, blocks-of-two, scheduling of previous seasons, the thought occurred that the CEOs of the various players' associations should have just as big a say in the seasonal fixture lists.

Yet nothing revives the appetite for yet more rugby than European Cup quarter-final weekend. True, it has crept up on us a little surreptitiously. After the run of four consecutive weekends in January - a welcome change in format brought about by the autumnal World Cup which also contributed to a 20 per cent increase in attendances - it's true to say the competition has lost some of its momentum.

Until recently played within a week of the conclusion of the pool stages at the end of January, the ERC's decision to delay quarter-final weekend until April is one of the best decisions they have ever made. It had seemed cruel that four of the sides who had battled through the notoriously difficult group stages could be out on their ears a week later. Far better that they have another two months to dream.

The merits of the decision are there for all to see this season, given that representatives from five nations have reached the quarter-finals for the first time, so generating far greater interest in the competition, from public and media alike, than would otherwise have been the case.

So it is that all four quarter-finals (Munster-Stade Francais, Wasps-Gloucester, Toulouse-Edinburgh and Llanelli-Biarritz) are already sell-outs, something that would not have happened had they been played last January within a week of the pool stages.

Yet, the aggregate attendance for this year's quarter-finals will be down some 60,000 on last year, in part because a Leinster quarter-final at Lansdowne Road has been lost to the equation and because all bar Toulouse of the home quarter-finalists have insisted on keeping their ties at their customary homes.

The ERC can scarcely conceal their frustration over this, with chief executive Derek McGrath on record as pointing out that a similar number of additional supporters have missed out on the opportunity to see a quarter-final, and that the club game has thus missed out on a further 1 million in gate receipts.

This is symptomatic of a sport that operates in something of a cocoon. As with the closed shop that is the Six Nations, vast swathes of prospective new rugby punters are not even bothering to look for tickets on the premise that they wouldn't have a hope in hell. And the funny thing is they'd be right.

No less than Leicester with regard to Welford Road, Llanelli at Stradey Park and so forth, Munster's preference for remaining at Thomond Park on purely rugby grounds is entirely understandable and predictable. But, for the tournament to truly reach out to parts of the sporting public it has hitherto not reached, the ERC may well decide to insist that henceforth quarter-final venues have a minimum capacity of 20,000.

It's decidedly ironic that the one quarter-final to be played in France, whose track record in this competition has often appeared more myopic and parochial than anybody's, is the exception. But then again, Toulouse have always been a pretty exceptional club, and ensuring a 36,500 sell-out for a quarter-final against Edinburgh at the city's football stadium is further proof of that.

On the face of it, Toulouse-Edinburgh looks like the banker bet of four probable home wins, which, were the Munster-Stade Francais, Wasps-Gloucester and Llanelli-Biarritz ties to go the same way, would ensure a reprise of two seasons ago in that four countries would still retain an interest.

However, these last-eight ties are not the guaranteed home wins they used to be. In the first five seasons of quarter-finals, there were only two away wins out of 20 ties, culminating in three years in a row without an away win. But two seasons ago Llanelli and Munster won away to Bath and Stade Francais, while last season Munster and Perpignan won in Leicester and Llanelli.

It probably has something to do with the ERC setting up a three-man refereeing selection panel, thereby promoting a meritocracy over nationalistic interests, witness this weekend's quartet: Nigel Williams, Alain Rolland, Chris White and Joel Jutge.

Hence, the genuine pan-European feel to this weekend's quarter-finals may not endure into the semi-finals. In fact, it is conceivable that by Saturday tea-time only two countries will retain an interest, and the prospect of an Anglo-French carve-up is unlikely to have much appeal beyond those boundaries. One only has to think back to last year's apathy for an all-French final on our doorstep, and it's hard to gauge who is more fickle and parochial, we the media or you the public.

All complete and utter bias aside, of course, but one would venture that the tournament's finale would be all the better for a Munster win in Thomond Park next Saturday. It's nothing against Stade, but not only would it force the ERC into making a hard sell for a semi-final, by contrast, they would have two weeks to sell almost 50,000 tickets for a Munster-Wasps or Munster-Gloucester semi-final at Lansdowne Road. Even if the opposition was a team of tailor's dummies, they'd only need about two hours.

Furthermore, a defeat for Stade would, at a stroke, remove the spectre of an all-French final in Twickenham involving the poorly supported Parisians. Mind you, the organisers have learnt their lessons from last year and, just in case, have pre-sold almost 50,000 for this year's final in advance, over 30,000 of them through sales via the Internet.

Once bitten and all that.

gthornley@irish-times.ie