WORCESTER have launched their season with high hopes and higher ambitions.

Whether they win promotion this year or not they have no doubt where they want to be within four seasons.

Time and again Les Cusworth and Cecil Duckworth repeat the party line about how they want to compete at the highest level possible at a self-sustaining rugby club.

The conviction is there and anything those two men say should be taken seriously.

But one big doubt remains . . . what, exactly, will be the highest level of competition an English club can take part in?

Despite the increased crowds the Allied Dunbar Premiership has attracted, the talk is of a British League. Meanwhile, clubs continue to play the okey-cokey around the idea of European competition.

The consensus is that a British League is wanted by the players, clubs, supporters, English Rugby Partnership and the RFU with only the stubborn Welsh RFU standing in its way.

The latter's arguments with Swansea and Cardiff have left the two leading Welsh clubs to play controversial and virtually meaningless friendlies against top English sides.

It is an uncomfortable half-way house to a full blown British League but despite all the clamour, Les Cusworth for one is against a cross-border competition replacing an English League.

''I disagree that it's the best way forward for rugby and everyone is being lured by money,'' he said.

''We need a very strong English league which finishes at the end of March when the top four go forward to a British competition spread out over six weeks.

''French sides could also be involved with the competition played on a league basis with two going through to a cup final.

''The problem is that rugby is not the national sport -- so clubs have to rely on away support coming through the turnstiles.

''Who can see fans travelling from Swansea to Glasgow or across to Ireland on a regular basis?''

For now the future of club rugby remains uncertain but that of Worcester's looks set in stone.

And the sooner they gain promotion the sooner they can be on the inside shaping the future of the game.

Monday, October 12, 1998.