What a glorious year to come for Rugby

Most of us wake on New Year's day with two things. The first is a hangover of such epic magnitude that the day's biggest achievement is not being sick at the family dinner table. The second is a sense of optimism and hope that the following 12 months will be an overwhelming success, that life will be purely good, and evil banished from the world forever. Why this should be the case is completely baffling, for what is so different between December in 2011 and January of 2012? But succumbing to the annual façade of optimism here are some things that I want from the coming year.

2011 was full of debate over the now much maligned scrum. Being that my short on-field career was played some distance from the scrum at Full Back, I am poorly qualified to make technical recommendations for its improvement. But one thing is certain however - the current lottery of refereeing at the scrum, resets and the frankly arduous touch, pause, touch, kiss, have a hug, engage needs to be addressed. Losing large parts of the playing game doing this merry go round will not help the popularity of the sport and desperately needs to be sorted.

The 2012 Six Nations is set to be a cracker. World Cup grudge matches litter the fixture list including the Wales-Ireland and England-France Quarter-Final rematches, and of course the now infamous 14 man Wales side versus France Semi-Final.

Whilst many England fans will be hoping for the successful defence of the title I have a much humbler ambition. Under Stuart Lancaster, England's interim head coach, I want the ears and eyes of the players, press and fans to be on what's happening on the pitch and not off it. After the disaster of the World Cup both players and press have a responsibility to stem the downward spiral of off-field events becoming the focus of the sport.

My last hope for 2012 may be less obvious, but is I feel still equally as important. All too often in the past 12 months we have seen teams kill the momentum of an attack, or wind down the clock, by holding the ball at the back of a ruck for what seems an age. I appreciate that there is both skill and nerve in securing good clean ball whether in a defence position or at the end of a close game. What is not acceptable however is the sheer length of time scrum-halves are being given to position each and every limb of their forwards, bark orders, wait a little and read a novel before making the pass. Referees should, as they do at the maul, be giving much quicker and earlier warnings to use it or lose it.

I had thought to add the RFU to my wish list but there is only so much optimism anyone can muster at once; so I will end there on this occasion and just keep my fingers crossed for another vintage year of rugby.