Silly me. I always thought that the whole point of rugby was to play rugby.

Now it seems, from the continuing contretemps between the Scottish Rugby Union and Premier Rugby, the clubs' organisation in England, over the availability of players for Scotland's international against New Zealand at the beginning of next month, that it is far more important to prepare than to play.

The temporary solution – which pleases neither Scotland team boss Frank Hadden nor Premier Rugby – is a compromise in the greatest traditions of a sport which the wags would like to see re-christened; not so much Rugby Football as Rugby Fudge.

Hadden had wanted the players to be available for the best part of a fortnight before a match which will have a crucial bearing on Scotland's seeding for the next Rugby World Cup and had relied on a ruling from the IRB, the game's governing body, that international requirements had primacy. But Premier Rugby, who had recently signed a deal with the Rugby Football Union over the release of players for England matches – including one week in the lead-up to the autumn internationals – were reluctant to concede any more ground.

Hadden is conscious that the likes of Argentina and Fiji, Tonga and Samoa – whose players combine to form England's first opponents in November – have long been used to the idea that, as the majority of their players earn their livings overseas, their chances of getting them together for any meaningful length of time are extremely limited – but he still wants the IRB to take action.

In the meantime ,he has done a deal with Premier Rugby whereby the English-based players, including Gloucester's Gang of Four, the two Alasdairs, Strokosch and Dickinson, and the two Lawsons, Scott and Rory, will report for training with Scotland at the start of each of the two weeks in question but return to their clubs for EDF Energy Cup matches in between. But Hadden couldn't resist a bit of arm-twisting. So vital was the match against New Zealand, he declared, that he could not guarantee that players who went back to their clubs for EDF matches would be able to take part in enough training sessions and, therefore, might not make the team.

As well as putting pressure on the players, Hadden was not averse to putting pressure on the clubs. He knew, he said, how many of the clubs regarded the EDF Energy Cup either as an unwanted extra or as a development tool. He was hopeful, therefore, that many of Scotland's key players might in any case be rested by their English employers.

There is more than a grain of truth in the comments made by the Scotland coach. The EDF Energy Cup, which resumes this weekend, is a lucrative anomaly. Last year it was worth more money per match to successful clubs than the much more prestigious and longer-established Heineken Cup. But it sat in an awkward place in the rugby calendar and, possibly because there was no promotion or relegation, it became instantly downgraded in the eyes of Premiership coaches. The knockout stages were special – the double-header semi-finals at the Millennium Stadium and the final at Twickenham were memorable occasions – but as the demands on the players grew, so did the appeal of the tournament diminish.

In any case, this is the last EDF Energy Cup in its present format. But, while the laws of common sense might dictate that it is scrapped altogether, the laws of Rugby Fudge envisage its expansion. There is a plan on the table for a 20-team competition – with the top four clubs in England's National Division One being added to the current qualifiers – as well as a junior competition involving the remaining eight teams in National Division One and six club teams from the Principality Wales Premiership.

All this requires the first division to be reduced to 12 clubs – by no means a 'done deal' – and the matches to be played at the same time as the Six Nations championship. This is attractive to the Premiership, which by extension will see all its matches played outside the international window, but hardly to potential sponsors – and a seven-figure sponsorship deal – difficult enough to achieve when the economy is moving, and perhaps unrealistic in the certainty that many of the draw-card players would not be featuring.

It is easy to see what Welsh teams would gain from the extension of Anglo-Welsh competition – they already acknowledge that their Heineken Cup ambitions are better served by the EDF Energy Cup than by the Magners League, and easy to see why ambitious first division clubs in England – anxious to establish themselves as professional entities – might be attracted.

But the Premiership is the powerhouse of the game in these parts, especially following the agreement with the RFU. Promoters of the new tournaments and Frank Hadden alike may find out the hard way; if a proposal is not in what the Premiership perceives to be its best interests, it won't happen.