SHUDDERINGLY incompetent. It is the only conclusion you can arrive at when looking at English rugby today.

Uncertainty riddled throughout the game on board a rudderless ship comically called 'governing body'.

The Rugby Football Union is the author of this debacle which is threatening to rip the very heart out of rugby and sweep away the grass roots.

It is a debate which seems to have no end but the fog engulfing promotion and relegation throughout the country is finally beginning to bite deep into people's ambition.

Worcester could be waiting until June 30 before they actually know what they are playing for next season. That is the deadline an RFU working party has been set to report back with their masterplan for the next six years regarding promotion to the Premiership. In the wake of Saturday's 21-9 defeat to Rotherham, it leaves the Sixways club in an impossible position.

Coaches have to plan ahead. It is a prerequisite of the job. John Brain and Andy Keast were busy recruiting for this campaign back in January 2002 but for next season, their hands are now effectively tied. With their contracts up in June, they don't even know if they will be at Sixways next season.

Worcester's chairman Cecil Duckworth is considering his options after seeing his dreams of a successful promotion campaign again go up in smoke. He cannot guarantee he will plough more money into an enterprise which is now becoming more of an expensive gamble rather than an enjoyable hobby. And nor should he. Why would anyone pump money into a game which blatantly scoffs at aspiration and breeds greed and corruption?

He has battled long and hard for justice in this game but to what end? Just who will stand up and say this is wrong, this is unjust, we must do something about it? Who has any semblance of decency in this sport which is looking more rotten by the year, soured by the sickening self interest which is now rampant inside the Premiership Bastille.

Even if this RFU working party comes out in June and states that there will be promotion next season -- they'll be nobody left at Sixways. The players will have left by then. The vast majority of them are on one-year deals. The coaches will be out of contract and there will be absolutely no plans in place regarding recruitment for season 2003-04.

What hope has anyone of preparing a team capable of either mounting a serious title challenge or good enough to win a play-off against a well-drilled Premiership outfit with years of stability behind it?

It would be laughable if the situation wasn't so serious. They are playing with people's lives. Thousands of players, hundreds of staff are just wondering what will happen. Take Orrell and Exeter. Two National One clubs with undoubted drive. What will they do now if the promotion drawbridge is raised? Orrell have a partnership with Wigan, a multi-millionaire owner in Dave Whelan. Exeter have drawn up plans for a new stadium. The question is, though, just who in their right mind would invest in the game at this level with absolutely no idea what is around the corner?

It is nothing short of scandalous. Worcester versus Rotherham on Saturday was a wonderful rugby occasion to be part of, full of colour, passion and vigour. Everything about it smacked of the Premiership and yet rugby's power brokers would quite happily turn their back on such a sight and stick to half empty football stadiums occupied by clubs on the verge of bankruptcy.

They would, no doubt, argue that it has provided a professional base for the world's best team but for how long? And, these academies that were proclaimed as England's future, where will the players play when they start to filter through the system?

The real and present danger is that we will be left with a professional base of 12 clubs safe in a comfort zone. By then, the grass roots will have dried up and all we can look forward to is more than 20 dead games per season that mean absolutely nothing.

When the sky falls in on this lot we can at least say we tried to argue our case. We talked long and hard to people who simply threw it back at us and tried to justify the unjustifiable. We know well enough that if you take the potential for growth out of sport, it will wilt and die.

Worcester's season may well have died on Saturday with Rotherham's smash and grab raid. But it is one thing to lose a match, quite another to lose all your hopes and dreams overnight.

Supporters can only hope that the game cannot be allowed to get away with it again but that infers that some sort of decency would be permitted into the sport.

Sadly, it is a stranger which simply wouldn't be recognised.