William Webb Ellis must be turning in his grave – 186 years after the public schoolboy, in "fine disregard for the rules…. first took the ball in his arms and ran with it", this weekend's championship decider between Ireland and Wales is likely to be won by the team with the best kicking game.

Ping! Irish outside-half Ronan O'Gara will be launching the ball into the febrile atmosphere of the Millennium Stadium.

Pong! Welsh full-back Lee Byrne will hoof it back into Irish territory.

Ping! His opposite number Rob Kearney will blast it back towards the Welsh goal-line.

Pong! Wales outside-half Stephen Jones , who will have hung back on purpose, will launch another howitzer in the direction of the Irish posts.

Underneath it will be O'Gara…. if the evidence of this season is anything to go by, the ping of aerial table tennis will continue ad nauseam and all we'll have left is the pong of a game gone bad.

Although the symptoms are plentiful, the illness is not yet terminal. Nevertheless, it is important to pin-point the cause before the cure can be applied. The players will blame the media – as if we invented the stakes for Saturday's showdown.

It is an indisputable fact that Ireland have not won a Grand Slam since 1948 and that no other team has endured a barren period quite like it.

It's not unnatural that Ireland's faithful fans, having suffered so much during past failures, are desperate to set the record straight and it's not unnatural that the media should be keen to reflect their longing, nor that for all the hoop-la surrounding Ireland, there is still a Triple Crown at stake and that Wales still have a chance of winning back-to-back championships.

The media will blame the coaches and, if we're being parochial about it, we will finger the imports from rugby league whose obsession with defence has led to the blunting of so many of the union game's attacking weapons.

With so many players spread out across the field, and not one of them allowed any excuse for stepping out of the defensive line, never mind missing a tackle, the opportunities for counter-attack have shrunk in inverse proportions to the risk in doing so.

The coaches will blame the law-makers, whose obsession with keeping the ball in play has multiplied the number of times that instead of being belted into touch it is hoofed downfield, and whose obsession with making the tackle area competitive has led many coaches to conclude that it is less risky to kick the ball away than it is to carry it into contact.

The law-makers will insist that the paying public will vote with their feet unless they see the ball in play more often, and that the fitness levels of today's players are so high, and the pace of the game so fast, that the changes are vital if rugby is to continue to compete both as a spectacle and as a test of all the traditional rugby attributes.

Now, I'm as keen as anyone to see the ball in play for longer periods of time, but if I'd wanted to see it in the air for longer periods, I'd have invested in a neck massage and taken out a subscription to watch Australian Rules football on satellite television.

I take my hat off to the kickers for their ability to send the ball into the stratosphere, and I marvel at the ball and boot-making technology that allows them to do so, but I can't say I like the effect it produces.

I do think that kicking from hand is a key rugby skill. The deft little defence-turning chip, the pin-point cross-field kick to an unmarked winger, the extravagant outside-of-the-foot 'banana' and the more prosaic and predictable box kick are vital weapons in a play-maker's armoury.

I can follow the logic of the Garryowen and can appreciate the mayhem it can cause in opposition defences. I can understand, from bitter experience, how a defensive player can feel so isolated that he has no option but to boot the ball downfield, but I also believe that giving possession away should be a last resort and not, as it has so depressingly become these days, a first option.

But, as the plaque commemorating the founding of the game at Rugby School goes on to point out, Webb Ellis' act of running with the ball in his arms originated the "distinctive feature of the rugby game".

I hope that's not forgotten this weekend.