Put me in a time machine and take me back to 23 November.
A memorable Autumn Nations Series was just behind us, and we we were turning towards the first United Rugby Championship tours of South Africa.
Johann van Graan was back in his home town of Pretoria and bursting with pride at bringing his own club back to Loftus Versfeld to take on the Bulls.
Those South African sides returned to home soil after a tough introduction to northern hemisphere rugby, but there was genuine excitement about what they could do when backed-up by their Springboks.
That week was meant to be the turning point of the season. History will show that it was, just not in the way we expected.
A few days later, the word Omicron entered our lexicon, and turned rugby - along with most things in life - upside down.
Five weeks on and the postponements are piling up faster than the green bin at Christmas.
While the structure of the URC means that there are still several free weekends dotted around the calendar in which the postponements can be refixed, the profile of those dates don't match what the games require.
The postponement of Ulster's meeting with Leinster this Saturday means both sides now have two Interpro matches to be rescheduled on top of their own derby, Ulster's being against Connacht and Leinster's against Munster.
Depending on the teams, there are anything between three and five weekends available to play those fixtures in, but currently all of them will be falling on the same week as Six Nations fixtures. For Munster, they have already booked out the final two rounds of Six Nations for their previously postponed away games against the Bulls and the Lions. Leinster's hosting of the Bulls has been refixed to take place on the same weekend that Ireland host Italy.
It's left tournament organisers with a huge decision to make, and none of the potential answers are hugely appealing.
Given the importance derby matches have on the league, it would be a very hard sell for those running the URC to place the rescheduled Munster v Leinster fixture into a weekend already dominated by the Six Nations, not to mention other derby games like Glasgow v Edinburgh or Cardiff v Scarlets. Through the various iterations of the tournament, there has always been extra protection afforded to having the prime time fixtures in the prime time windows.
If they move those postponed Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Italian derby games to more meaningful weekends, they would be forced into moving some lower-profile matches into the Six Nations window, and while the product would be better for it, they would risk damaging some integrity.
As an example, is it justifiable to play Munster v Leinster on 19 February, and reschedule Leinster v Ospreys for the week previous simply to maximise the eyes on the fixture? It sets a dangerous precedent for a league to make such rearrangements mid-season.
The other solution is for the URC to cross their fingers and hope none of the teams involved make it to the latter stages of the Heineken Champions Cup which would open up a few weekends unexpectedly, or amputate a round of playoffs from their own tournament. The summer isn't theirs to play with though, with international tours dictating their calendar.
"It's a case of historically bad luck that a new, highly-contagious strain of Covid-19 was found in South Africa on the eve of the URC's big debut of games in the country, ceasing travel between the league's jurisdictions and forcing several teams to be stranded thousands of miles from home."
If all else fails we may end up with midweek fixtures, which has always been resisted due to the impact on player welfare.
The real fear is that there are further postponements to come, as well as an ever-muddying rules of international travel, which could leave the URC in need of a complete format overhaul, which would be incredibly damaging for a tournament in its debut season.
The experience of the last few weeks may cause organisers to rethink the future of the tournament also. When the URC was drawn up, the four-week break in November seemed a fine idea, allowing themselves take a backseat to the international game, rather than get lost in it. But if Covid-19 is something that could potentially hang over our lives for several years to come, it might be wise to make the most of those weeks when they have them.
Blaming the tournament organisers for the situation they've found themselves in would be a harsh road to go down to say the least. It's a case of historically bad luck that a new, highly-contagious strain of Covid-19 was found in South Africa on the eve of the URC's big debut of games in the country, ceasing travel between the league's jurisdictions and forcing several teams to be stranded thousands of miles from home.
It was to their credit that they've kept those games on the slate, rescheduling them for the spring, and aside from the Rainbow Cup their first move throughout the pandemic has consistently been to find space in the calendar, rather than cancel matches entirely.
But they're now running out of time, and the backlog is growing.
It's hard to see what their next decision will be. The only guarantee is that it will likely have to be unpopular.
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