THE Gloucester players have had a rest that nobody wants.
When you are playing, whatever the level at any sport, you want to be in the mix for top honours.
There is usually the official line of 'well, the lads needed a week off because of this, that and the other'.
The tired chaps would patch themselves up with elastoplast or superglue to be part of the play-offs or still in Europe.
The squad has achieved top-flight European competition next season and that is a mighty achievement when set against the shambles of the end of last term. Heineken places do not come easily and Kingsholm can look forward to the best that Europe has to offer.
The Lions, thankfully, is still an attraction for players. The clubs and regions may see it as a cross their players should not have to bear, but they will never get the players themselves to agree, not willingly anyway.
A tour with the Lions has to be every player's dream, though the whole concept will be gradually eroded over time.
European competition is expanding in a way that was never thought about in the amateur days and a worldwide competition will not be too far down the line.
The money men are probably already looking at the logistics of some north-south hemisphere battle.
Rugby League went successfully to a summer season, so it can be done.
If there is enough wonga at the end of it, do not rule it out.
The game is changing at a rate that many of us old-timers cannot take on board.
Who would have thought it possible for a rugby player to take on a double-decker bus, lose the fight, end up in hospital and wake up to a super-model actress who has brought you a bottle of Lucozade and a bag of grapes?
That was the dreadful fate that faced Danny Cipriani when all we ever got was Roy Fowke with an ice-cold sponge and zero sympathy.
Roy's bedside manner did leave a bit to be desired, but he got many a fatally wounded player back on his feet simply by being there.
The last match of the Cherry and Whites' season could not be harder.
Exeter Chiefs are honest, tough, relentless and hugely competitive.
Gloucester at their recent best, Harlequins and Saracens, need to be the side that turns up rather than the one that goes AWOL.
