Loaned players and the introduction of Dual registered players makes nonsense of saying the best club will make it to the top. With certain clubs having padded-out their team by using loaned players and a seemingly endless supply of D/R players, then it will be a case of those who are in-bed with a Premiership Club and access to these players that would have the better chance of success.

One example is that of Nottingham RFC, who have on occasion fielded a team of which nearly half were LP/DR players, and of course bring skill levels that Nottingham wouldn’t necessarily have – or indeed afford.

Individual clubs can feel rightly aggrieved when building a squad from their own financial resources only to be beaten by an artificially pumped –up team that looks good regarding league position – but meaningless in reality – evidenced when their parent club calls their loaned players back into the fold.

This will a negative effect on the Championship. The LP/DR situation needs to be looked at or it will be the Championship that ends up being an ‘artificially pumped-up’ league – looking good on paper but meaningless in reality.

To be brutally honest, if like Gloucester and dominating the league for the best part of a season, you can’t then make it stick in either a league play off semi-final or a final then there is something seriously wrong in how you run your team. Dean Ryan was found out swiftly after his first Guinness Premiership play off fiasco and afterwards teams as far afield as the South of France and Ireland knew how to expose his teams mental frailties.

Play-offs benefit the survivor and the team who pushes hardest despite numerous setbacks. Surely the team that has a rough start but ends up challenging for honours in the top 4 at the end is better suited for a Premiership campaign than the team cruising along at the top for most of the season and then flopping at the last hurdle.