"How can a man paid to play football possibly be fitter and more skilful than a man who works in a chip shop all week and only plays football on a Saturday?"

The line from Harry Enfield's Mr Cholmondley-Warner is of course absurd and football's days of amateurism are consigned to the dusty recesses of the history books.

But for rugby's second division they are still battling with the conundrum of whether to employ full or part-time players.

At the lower end, financial realities mean that to pay their players at all is a luxury and the extreme example of West Hartlepool being unable to hire a coach for their visit to Worcester shows just how precariously some are perched.

But the sides at the top end are faced with a real dilemma. They are within touching distance of Premiership One where they can see world stars being paid huge wages thanks largely to the guarantees of cash from the RFU and television -- Premiership One clubs receive £1m annually from the RFU but the division two clubs get just £250,000.

Clubs such as Worcester, Leeds and Rotherham are desperate to get a slice of the action, and the bigger cake, but with top clubs trying to maintain an invitation only policy they cannot keep throwing money at promotion campaign.

This season the system of a derisory play-off place for the champions of the second division is an insulting arrangement.

The future could be worse though with franchises ending promotion so rendering the top sections of rugby's pyramid redundant overnight.

Worcester are in the middle of the problems. By talking to businesses about job shares suggests they are scaling down their playing staff to get their books in order for a franchise bid.

Sixways' development plans are more in line with Heineken Cup games than seeing the likes of Henley and West Hartlepool.

Geoff Cooke also argues you can do no more with players than four half-day sessions a week -- that the body cannot take any more and that a job or study distracts the mind from the daily chore of training.

Modern day rugby offers no easy answers, but movements off the field at Sixways this summer look just as important as those on it.

Thursday, May 4, 2000.