Starts matter. A fresh start is part of the way we attack life: this time we’re really going to get it right, so look out, world. The England rugby union team have just such a fresh start in front of them, the next of many, and for Martin Johnson, their team manager, nothing would be finer than a rip-snorting new beginning, a start as if the disappointments of the recent past had never happened.

If you look through the collection of the first and second-tier rugby union nations, it is hard to find one that doesn’t take a special delight in dashing English hopes. But if you insist on sorting out the leaders in this respect, you would have to say that the Welsh shade it. So, naturally, England face Wales at Twickenham today, and I don’t suppose the team-talk will go: “OK, boyos, let’s go easy on Johnno.”

It’s a big test of Johnson’s leadership, his tactics, his strategy. A vibrant performance in a narrow defeat would just about suffice; a sordid and scruffy victory would be rather better. I remember one of Johnson’s predecessors, Dick Greenwood, telling me: “I’d love to beat the Welsh by a single, disputed penalty . . . except I wouldn’t.”

2: Can Arsenal triumph for Ferguson?

We have another test of credentials on Sunday, another series of questions along the lines of: “Is this the real deal or another false dawn?” One of sport’s eternal questions. This time it’s Arsenal, perpetually promising, not for a while delivering. Arsenal: always thrilling, always the neutral’s choice. And always a bit disappointing.

They’ve been written off for the title once and came roaring back with some sumptuous — and battlesome — performances. So now the question is being asked again: are Arsenal serious or are they just a superb piece of decoration?

Tomorrow they play Chelsea, who already have — intermittently — shown the swagger of champions rather than the urgency of challengers. A win at Stamford Bridge for Arsenal would set the Barclays Premier League into a tizz; a defeat and we are back in the land of same old, same old. The one drawback of an Arsenal victory is that it would bring massive delight to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United. Arsène Wenger’s team-talk: “Allez, mes braves! Let’s do it for Fergie!”

3: I am rooting for Saints to go marching in

Once it was the wild new fashion. Once it was going to take over from football; football as in sah-kurr. Once it exemplified all that was most cheering about professional sport. As the round-ball game was washed with the shame of the 1980s, so the pointy-ball game — wacky and exotic, in turns thrilling and hilarious — told everybody that here, at least, sport was fun.

Well, American football hasn’t taken over from football football. Sport is not an aspect of fashion, it is an aspect of culture, and a fairly deeply embedded one. But American football has taken a place, modest but real enough, in British sporting culture. It’s Super Bowl time again and tomorrow night will be the night of the year for some people at least. Rum, the way this noisy, posturing, mainstream American sport has become in Britain a niche sport with a slightly geekish following. But the action — the soaring spiral, the diving one-handed grab — can be glorious. The Indianapolis Colts, with their inspirational quarterback, Peyton Manning, take on the New Orleans Saints, whose black and gold picked out with fleurs-de-lys makes one of the coolest outfits in sport. Allez, mes braves, and let’s go easy on that old quarterback.