Having just returned from the launderette I am grateful for the opportunity to register my thoughts on the suggestion that this country's leading rugby players are considering going on strike.

Yesterday morning's trip to Selly Soak was necessitated by the coughing fit into which I convulsed a few seconds after reading about the Professional Rugby Players' Association's intention to ballot their players on industrial action.

My clothes are now happily free of the marmite on toast and orange juice deposited there at six minutes past eight, though the microwave still needs some TLC.

The players, it seems, are wholly sick and tired of being caught in the middle between their clubs and their governing body, who find it difficult to agree on the day, never mind the future of the sport.

The PRA chief executive Damian Hopley confirmed in a national newspaper, who quoted him thus: "If revolution is the only language that people can understand, then maybe we will have to ballot our members and see if they are willing to take strike action.

"If common sense doesn't prevail, then where else can you turn? The game is not so much shooting itself in the foot, as blowing off both feet." A perfect example of the tail wagging the dog I thought.

But no longer. Having sat for an hour and a half watching Spin Cycle A go through its motions, it occurred to me that the PRA's sentiments belonged to a bygone era when the players were all that mattered.

When the game bifurcated into two codes over a century ago much of it was down to snobbery and status preservation but there was also an ethical difference between the two camps that went on to become union and league.

The union chaps, most of whom were based in the south of England, thought rugby should be played for the pure enjoyment, they did not need and most certainly did not want broken time payments [2014] financial remuneration for hours lost at work when playing.

The flat caps of the north did, however, because their sport had crystallised into a spectacle, that is something that members of the public paid to watch. Hence the pressure to recruit and field the best players.

That led to the formation of two separate codes in which rugby union existed purely for the players and the joy of playing. Leisure of leisure's sake, if you will.

That's why some held to amateurism the way a drowning man clings to driftwood until just over a decade ago.

In short, players' interests were all that mattered, first, second and last and that means the current posturing is far from out of step with days of yore.

What happened at the start of the 1970s was actually the dog wagging the tail as the Rugby Football Union realised what a money-spinner the Five Nations, as it was then, had become.

Their guarding of the sport's soul, as they liked to paint it, was nothing more than . . .status preservation. How they enjoyed the income generated by the talents of the players.

So all in all, why not have a players strike? Nothing else has forced the RFU and Premier Rugby to work together and not against each other.

The assortment of issues that currently blights the game needs resolving and if it takes a 'revolution' to do that then so be it. Keep the Red Flag flying high, I say.

On a similar note, my cogitations on the subject brought to mind a piece of kitchen-table philosophy conceived by Matt Groening, creator of The Simpsons.

It occurred to me that many of the England players have already taken a form of industrial action several years ahead of their peers.

"You don't like your job, you don't strike. You go in every day and do it really half-assed. That's the American way," claimed Mr Groening.

It could be the Red Rose way too. n Another man who has already withdrawn his labour is Worcester lock Craig Gillies who is currently suspended from playing for getting his feet in a tangle on an opponents' leg.

As a result of his illadvised quickstep on Joe El Abd [2014] admittedly a man who would test the patience of even the holiest saint [2014] Gillies was forced to sit out his team's appointment at London Irish.

What a punishment that turned out to be.

Gillies' absence was compounded by the curious combinations Worcester selected in their lineout at the Madejski Stadium as Richard Blaze, Will Bowley and Aleki Lutui teamed up.

They are a trio that has never started a game together, never mind a match that could have secured their Premiership position. Blaze's departure to Leicester ensures they never will again.

The result was painful. Worcester were routed, Lutui overthrew Bowley at the back on several occasions and as a team they failed to contest the Irish throw in. If ever a man owes his team a performance it's Gillies on Saturday week.