The leaves have turned brown, there's a decided chill in the air, the Olympics have gone, the GAA championships are almost over (barring another draw), it's rugby time and it's harvest festival time, so therefore it's time to reap what you sow.

Each of the provinces having played five games and - amid much last-ditch phone calling and paperwork - having finally plucked their chosen 30 of those still standing, they are now well set to put their best foot forward in Europe. As the sponsors might put it, the Heineken Cup is set to refresh the parts other competitions cannot reach.

Indeed, on the premise that a change is as good as a rest, there's a theory around in Munster that the onset of the European Cup will re-invigorate them, giving them a fresh challenge after the more parochial nature of the Interprovincial Championship. They remain the standard-bearers, with 19 wins in their last 21 matches, but though the table shows them to have won the title with a round to spare, as was the case last year, this masks the truth a little, for it's been tougher for Munster this time around and they know it. Last season, they blazed a trail and were scoring tries freely - 23 in their first five games compared to 10 this season. Increasingly, they've fallen back on their ability to absorb pressure and pull wins out at the death.

Some of this can undoubtedly be attributed to the loss of Keith Wood, one of their two primary game-breakers along with Mike Mullins last season. And players like that don't grow on trees, even in Munster. As an aside to the surprise selection in their 30 of James Blaney (captain to the Irish Schools team which Declan Kidney took to New Zealand in 1992), with Michael Smyth at Connacht and John Campbell at Ulster, surely Terenure are the first club having players with all four provinces simultaneously?

But there are two other important factors at work too, primarily the hangover effect caused by last May's European Cup final defeat by Northampton. Kidney, in the aftermath of securing a third successive title last Friday night, pointed to the drop in form of the four previous European Cup losing finalists. He might also have added the example of the previous three winners, Bath, Ulster and latterly Northampton. Furthermore, the other three provinces have all improved since last season. Undoubted proof of that came with Ulster's showing in Cork last Friday. Their setpieces, and especially their vulnerable scrum of last season, has strengthened significantly. They're creating more, and they've a good kicking game. They've a brute of a draw in Europe, but they'll be more competitive, although the way they panicked and died a little late on against Munster (twice) and Leinster at Donnybrook is a concern.

If or when Leinster get over their injury crux, their best rugby is still ahead of them and their draw is relatively promising. But their kicking game remains poor and while they look like a well-drilled side which knows what it's doing for four or five phases, when it comes to closing out the move, their intuitive, off-the-cuff decision making has been letting them down.

THE system probably isn't producing sufficient players fit for Euro fare. One of the problems here is that with each passing year of professionalism, the gap between the provinces and the clubs, at this time of the season especially, has widened. And as much as the provincial leagues cannot produce players ready for Europe, the thought of what an 18-stone full-time pro might do in contact with amateurs when dipping into, say, the Kitty O'Shea championship is even scarier.

It would help all concerned, particularly the provinces, if the provincial A championship was revived, if only for three rounds. Even so, some good players (not all of them injured) missed the cut last week, admittedly most of them back-rowers. The pickings are slimmer in other areas but henceforth the provinces should be obliged to put forward provisional lists to the IRFU a little sooner. That way, for example, Connacht might have been aware that Simon Broughton was available.

A change to last season's ERC rules means that the European Cup and Shield winners both qualify automatically next season for the Cup as part of their country's allocation. It would be hilarious therefore if Connacht took that route into the Cup, though with Montferrand's galaxy of stars that's a forlorn hope.

Even so, for all the doubting Thomases among us, similarly gloomy outlooks preceded Ulster and Munster's runs the past two seasons. In truth the margins are just very finite. Home advantage is huge - over two-thirds of the games are won by the home teams - and for the Irish sides pretty much most matches are winnable and nearly all of them losable.

In the pool stages of last season's European Cup, the three Irish teams achieved a 50 per cent winning ratio, just behind the English (57), the French (55.5) and the Welsh (52) with the Scots not that far back on 42. The Irish teams could achieve something slightly better, but with a more even spread than last season (when Munster topped their group and Ulster propped up theirs) could still not provide one quarter-finalist.

This is made more possible by the competition's gross flaw wherein only the two best runners-up progress. Were this to come down to points difference, conceivably this could be due to running up a big score over Roma in Pool Five. Far fairer would be a return to the format of three seasons ago when all the pool runners-up were accommodated in an extra play-off round.

But new ground has been broken each season, and recalling Leinster's win in Leicester, and Munster's away to Saracens, Colomiers and Toulouse, unlike a few seasons ago there's certainly no reason to tug the forelock.