This season's Guinness Pro 14 isn't just a case of what can we expect from the Irish provinces?
They also have to take the new format into account with the old Pro 12 moving from it's pure league format to a conference structure and the addition of two sides from South Africa in the shape of the Cheetahs and Southern Kings.
With all that to contend with and new faces to bed in and some familiar faces having departed, it'll be interesting to see how Munster, Leinster, Connacht and Ulster fare during the 2017-18 domestic season.
On the return of Wednesday Night Rugby, Liam Toland and The Irish Times' rugby correspondent Gerry Thornley joined us on Off The Ball to preview the new season and they started by focusing on the pros and cons of adding two teams from South Africa.
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"Starting off with the negative is the player welfare issue. Obviously there's added travel time, there's added demand on the players, there's added costs to those teams," said Toland, adding that the Pro 14 will look to redress that financial side.
"The positives are huge. There's a huge TV population in South Africa that simply doesn't exist in the British Isles and in Ireland - the Guinness Pro areas that is. So obviously, we have 5 million or so, whereas in South Africa they have multiple millions as well. So there's a bigger market and if it proves fruitful, maybe then there'll be a bigger ambition to go west into North America, so who knows where it's going to take.
"You've got to give everybody involved a lot of credit to have turned this around so quickly and then the excitement of an Irish team playing in South Africa is very exciting, having toured there a few times, it's a wonderful place to go to. There's no timezone difference. For the casual viewer though who will wonder, well how does this all mete out, well there's going to be 21 rounds, you play everyone in your own conference and then you play everyone in the opposite conference - seven in each conference so you play everyone twice in your own group which gives you 12 games and you play the seven teams in the opposite.
"And here's the bit that's going to keep the juices flowing: the home unions if I'm correct get to nominate the remaining two derbies. So there's two Irish provinces in Conference A and two in Conference B and those significant derbies will continue as we've always liked them."
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