For most clubs, last Saturday's National One programme represented the beginning of the second half of the league season.
Only Pertemps Bees were afforded the weekend off and, even then, they had the dubious honour of travelling to Rotherham for the sheer craic. They should not, however, bleat too loudly about wanting their coach fare refunded.
Several of their key players, not least their captain Jon Higgins and scrum half Paul Knight, will benefit from an extra week's preparation for Saturday's derby match with Moseley.
Speaking of whom, with the programme sufficiently advanced, it now seems apposite to consider how effectively loan arrangements and dual registration have operated between First Division Rugby (FDR) outfits and their rich Premiership brethren.
None of the Level Two teams are as close to a particular top-flight club as Moseley are to Gloucester. Since they formalised their 'ground-breaking' agreement, nearly a whole XV has made the trip up the M5 to play at Billesley Common - with vastly different results.
Bees themselves have experience of working with the Cherry-and-Whites and have indeed been in regular contact with Worcester Warriors, Bristol and Bath.
Coventry have taken a couple of players from Leicester, though rather surprisingly not from Worcester; indeed, most teams in National One have embraced a cross-fertilisation of playing staff.
On the whole, it seems to have been OK. The evidence of the first four months is that dual registration has resulted in some talented young players being exposed to genuine adult competition and that must be applauded.
Where else would Jack Forster be playing meaningful rugby other than in the First Division? How much will Jack Adams and Gloucester, possibly even England, benefit from his experience with Moseley? The principle must be upheld as good for the future.
Yet - there has to be a yet - it is necessarily the case that every arrangement, formal or otherwise, between Premiership and FDR clubs is destined to have difficulties.
Coaches employed at Gloucester want one thing, coaches employed by Moseley want another and often these requirements change.
The past few months have been littered with different valuations of certain players. To make matters worse, those opinions have changed and the requisite communication has not always kept pace.
Moseley were distinctly dis-chuffed, if one can be so, at the very outset of their agreement when Jon Goodridge was allowed to move to Leeds, rather than be out-sourced to Billesley Common.
They were also irritated by the moved goal-posts that saw Adam Balding made available for two games but no longer. Balding is also at Leeds now and, though he has technically been loaned, his return to Kingsholm is far from guaranteed.
Gloucester should not have offered a player of such undoubted Premiership quality, because it was always going to tempt Moseley into selecting through short-term expediency.
That has a disastrous effect on team morale. Local lads who have sweated, bled and even cried for the cause should not be taken for granted when someone of Balding's ability turns up.
Team spirit is one of those precious but intangible elements that can be worth 20 points a season - the difference between safety and relegation.
Moseley lacked it earlier this season against Newbury when they started with six Gloucester players in their side and put in their worst performance of the campaign.
It is probably slightly facile to say that their two best showings, against London Welsh and Cornish Pirates, came with only two borrowed players, but the point stands.
Another temptation is for the loaning clubs to have their cake and devour it. Not content with carrying four props, three fly halves or ten wings, they have chosen to dally until Wednesday or Thursday before letting clubs know who they can and can't have.
Certainly, Bees have struggled in this way with Worcester. The relationship between the two organisations is - or perhaps that should be was, given recent off-field changes at Sharmans Cross Road - pretty good.
But unpredictable access to James Collins, Joey Carlisle and Miles Benjamin has not made life easy for the Solihull side, who have had to play a scrum half at inside centre, an injured fly half and a square peg in a round hole at openside.
Most National One sides have also suffered from the fact that the players they do get have already played a Guinness A league game on Monday night and are not then in much of a state to train on Tuesday.
There is also the obvious disparity between being loaned experienced performers like Gary Trueman and James Brown and callow youths who have never played adult rugby.
But perhaps the most unsavoury situation since the start of the season has seen Ludovic Mercier and Karl Pryce slumped on a bench at Billesley Common, looking like they had just stepped in dog mess.
One FDR head coach expressed his concern that the threat of being sent to National One was being wielded like a stick against out-of-favour players. That is not the way a laudable idea should be treated.
Where loan arrangements live and die is whether the participating clubs consider the short-term needs of the first team or the long-term development of the player. So far this season, we have seen both. :
