The air of optimism around the game in England is almost tangible. After five years when the national side have struggled to find an effective path, having cut a swath through global opposition in 2003, there is a strong sense that clubs and country are realigned and that the growing market for rugby union will be rewarded during 2008-09.

The Guinness Premiership clubs, who open their season this weekend, should be exempted from criticism. They have kept their end of the bargain, sustaining interest with a rugged variety of play, improving their facilities, drawing players from the world over while also laying down a conveyor belt of home-grown talent.

But two words of warning: within the agreement that came into force on July 1, laying down the relationship between the RFU and the elite clubs for the next eight years, there is a clear implication that the game should not be swamped from overseas. There are built-in rewards for those clubs producing England-qualified players which, one would hope, was the aim and ambition of all 12 clubs anyway, for all the frustration felt by those most frequently raided by the national management.

There are also signs that this season will have teething problems, at least to begin with. The requirements of the International Rugby Board’s (IRB) experimental law variations (ELV), trialled in the southern hemisphere over the past two years and now to face the rigorous examination of the professional game in Europe, could produce games in which neither players nor referees know precisely what they are about.

France’s Top 14 kicked off last week with an air of uncertainty while pre-season friendlies involving English clubs have proved a distinctly mixed bag, even allowing for a rash of mistakes from players recovering from the summer break. Specifically, the breakdown will be a penalty-ridden zone until players understand what is permitted in terms of securing the ball and what is not: “Those teams who adapt the quickest will have a head start on the rest,” Andy Goode, Leicester’s former fly half now taking up residence in Brive, said after last weekend’s sun-baked draw with Toulon.

The IRB protocol demands that referees — and England have some of the best in the world, seven of them full-time compared with only three in France, for example — adhere rigidly to the law so that players remain on their feet where possible. Often, of course, it is not possible and how will referees rule on intent then? Laws approved in the hope of encouraging an attacking game may founder on the ability of coaches to build defence quicker than offence, and the climatic conditions.

Even on good grounds, the Tri-Nations in the southern hemisphere has featured more tactical kicking than normal, not all of it accurate. In the midst of a British winter, some players anticipate a kick-fest now that the ball passed back into the 22 cannot go straight to touch; if, of course, there is an Indian summer in the next six weeks and players look to run, maybe they can build good habits that will serve them well when the rain comes down.

But there should be no damp squibs or wet blankets so early in the day. A season that starts amid the colour of the London double-header, the clash of perennial rivals Gloucester and Leicester at Kingsholm, the restoration of Northampton to the Premiership and the hope that Martin Johnson’s arrival as England team manager will be the ingredient for the national team’s revival should spark the imagination.

So, too, should the knowledge that, at the end of this season, the Lions will depart on their four-yearly crusade, this time to South Africa, home of the world champions, where they enjoyed so signal a triumph the last time they were there, in 1997. Every player from the four home unions hopes to win a place among the best of the best, coached by Ian McGeechan who has himself become a Lions legend.

McGeechan’s trick this season will be to balance the requirements of his champion club, London Wasps, with those of the Lions while Shaun Edwards, his head coach, and potential Lions coach, is doing the same with Wales. By October, McGeechan hopes to confirm the Lions coaching panel and then he and his colleagues will concentrate on selection for the ten-match trip, which starts next May. It is a sign of the collaborative times that Premier Rugby Ltd (PRL) has adjusted its season so that it does not have an impact (as it originally did) on the start of the Lions tour.

There will be a new verity, and a new discipline, about England with Johnson in charge and he will emphasise to all those ambitious to represent their country that they must first play well for their clubs. He has already named his elite squad of 32, and the next 32 below that, but injuries will take their toll and Johnson is not one to ignore form just for the sake of it.

There needs to be a new reality abroad, which means neither clubs nor country paying lip-service to the mantra that each can benefit from the other. That is the mood of Rob Andrew, the RFU’s director of elite rugby, and Mark McCafferty, chief executive of PRL, and what most players believe to be essential so that they, the ones who matter most, are not torn between pillar and post.