Italy continued their steady progress with another win over Scotland but such is the current sorry state of the Scottish game that the 20-14 Rome victory was not even a surprise.
England finished third in the championship and then, worn out and without several key players, set off for an ill-advised southern hemisphere tour.
Two All-Black defeats and a 51-15 drubbing by Australia emphatically ended their run of 12 victories over the SANZAR nations and Woodward resigned shortly afterwards.
Attention then turned to the Tri-Nations, which turned out to be the most open and exciting edition in its nine-year history.
New Zealand, under new coach Graham Henry and new captain Tana Umaga, seemed on course for a third successive title when they won their home games against Australia (16-7) and South Africa (23-21).
But the Wallabies turned the tables in Sydney (23-18) then pip-ped South Africa (30-26) in Perth.
However, the bonus points South Africa received for twice losing by seven points or fewer proved decisive.
They crushed New Zealand 40-26 in Johannesburg to set up a winner-takes-all decider with Australia which they won 23-19.
White, the 10th Springbok coach in 13 years, has to take much of the credit for the resurgence as he swept away the culture of violence and racism that stained the nation and replaced it with a vibrant new attitude that paid dividends.
By the time the Springboks arrived in Europe for the November Tests, however, they found the fresh European forwards too stiff a challenge for their weary bodies.
It was a great month of rugby with exciting, intense match-ups but the physical strain on the players of all nations and over-familiarity of matches remains a major problem in the game.
England's World Cup-winning flyhalf Jonny Wilkinson, player of the year in 2003, spent almost all of this year on the sidelines through injury and there were many others with similar problems.
The other major area of concern remains the lack of competitiveness of the "second-tier" nations.
But the year ended with a reminder that, come the 2007 World Cup, it is likely to be the same teams in the quarterfinals as Japan, Romania, Canada the US and even Scotland were all shown to be horribly off the pace.
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