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In the interests of keeping myself up to date with current thought patterns in the game this item is addressed to all those who go to watch live rugby at the ground. When do you prefer to go, when do you want your team to kick off? Are you happy with the shift away from the well-loved rugby slot?

You don't have to be as old as the hills to remember a time when every rugby match kicked off at 3pm on a Saturday, or at 2.15pm after the clocks changed. It will have escaped no-one's notice that kick-off times are scattered all around the 24-hour clock and all across the week. Now we have Thursday and Friday evening games, Saturday lunchtime games, Saturday evening games, and Sunday games.

Often, those people marketing the matches try to suggest that they are only giving the fans what they want - as if fans are demanding that games take place at, say, 3am on a Sunday morning. The truth is, of course, that the kick-off times are dictated by television moguls or, in the case of the Guinness Premiership, because some of the clubs share a ground with football teams.

Less than seven years ago, one of the big websites ran a poll to see if rugby's public wanted their sport on a Saturday or a Sunday. There was a vast response - and a vast majority voted for Saturday. I will admit that I cannot fathom why the Magners League sticks itself into a Friday ghetto. Last week's Dragons-Glasgow game, played on a foul Friday in front of the dodgy Newport lights, came across as some kind of long-forgotten Wagnerian exercise in fulfilling a fixture.

The reaction of the All Black players after their recent win in South Africa was also interesting. Most Kiwi rugby takes place in the dead of evening and as New Zealanders would admit, there is nothing quite as dreary as a Kiwi winter night. The All Blacks declared that they absolutely loved the experience of playing on a bright South African afternoon at 3pm.

I am not a paid-up member of the Lord's Day Observance Society, but I do still see Sunday as a family day (after morning colts, of course) and I do love Saturday afternoon kick-offs - and not just because they help my deadlines.

Do we care any more? Are we happy being summoned at all hours of the day and night because television says so? Is Sunday now a big rugby day? Or do we prefer the old order?

Sevens' deadly sins

Some time ago, I went to the Hong Kong Sevens. It was a sensational trip. It was all expenses paid. I flew out first class and stayed in a stunning hotel with a revolving restaurant. I was naïve in those days and didn't realise the restaurant revolved, so when I came back to my table after visiting the loo I tried to turf four strangers off my table. The rugby was brilliant.

Naturally, I immediately became a huge fan of sevens. Or had I become a huge fan of exotic trips? These days I am just not sure. I grasp the glorious promotional abilities of the IRB's world sevens circuit. But it seems to me that the loudest proponents of sevens these days are those who attend the major events. Joe Lydon once told me that in his time as England's head sevens coach (and I am not saying he did not give it everything) he visited every one of the great wine-growing areas of the world.

Does sevens really help young players to blossom? Sometimes, when the England sevens set-up is trying to promote itself it gives a list of the latest full England squad members who once played for the national sevens team, as if they had only made it because they played sevens, which is clearly nonsense.