By Elliott Josypenko
December 8 2004

There is nothing so dispiriting as having a problem, identifying the answer yet lacking the wherewithal to expedite the solution. It's the position in which Phil Maynard currently finds himself.

Fifteen years at the coal-face of part-time rugby have convinced the Pertemps Bees director of rugby that the game, and more worryingly the division in which he operates, has moved on to a point of unprecedented temporal and financial demand.

Level Two is no longer dominated by one or two professional clubs jostling for promotion to whatever the top-flight of the day is called.

Instead, half of the division is now full-time and, according to Maynard, it has become virtually impossible to bridge the gap with just four hours a week in which to train. It is a point he will put to the Bees board at a meeting this week. "This club has reached a crossroads and something has to give," he said.

He will ask the men with the chequebooks to help him out. "National One is moving rapidly and we are standing still. At some point, that will mean we will end up going backwards," he said.

What does more money do? It could bring in a few extra players but his current crop were good enough to beat Wasps nine months ago, so it's not as if they're not good enough to get the better of sides like Bedford and Nottingham now.

He could instigate a third training session but, as Maynard puts it: "All these lads have got proper jobs, they are plumbers, electricians, accountants and teachers. An extra session a week would help but whether we could organise it is another question."

Players like inside centre Mike Davies, who travels from Wales twice a week, already spend as much time on the road as they do in their own beds.

He could look for players who will make that commitment but are they available? Maynard had a difficult enough time in the summer selecting a handful of acceptable reinforcements from the sea of dross he calls the 'rugby circus'.

That only becomes a problem if, not when, the purse-strings are loosened.

Maynard's request could end up with a cut to the playing budget as resources are siphoned off to recruit a couple of commercial suits to raise money for next season.

These are the dilemmas of the part-time rugby club and these are the dilemmas that must be solved because, if Saturday's match with Exeter is anything to go by, the status quo is unsustainable.

Exeter were determined and organised and had they not stopped playing to their patterns, the scale of Bees' defeat could have been even greater.

But whether the points-margin had been one point or 100, for 70 minutes of this game the disparity was stark and the gulf between the sides had its roots in their differing financial capabilities.

Exeter have spent a packet to drape two pale-blue shirts around the considerable shoulders of the Kiwi Fatialofa brothers.

The two centres were at the heart of everything Exeter did well. Whether they were operating as dummy runners or punishing ball-carriers Bees had no answer to Mark and Junior Fatialofa.

They were prompted by the excellent stand-off, Tony Yapp, who gave a faultless display.

Oddly, his opposite number Tim Walsh played reasonably well, but his task was much different. The Australian's best contributions came in defence, constantly firing clearances into the Exeter half.

At times, he even seemed more willing than some of his forwards to get involved at the breakdown. That is where Bees lost this game.

It is a strange sight, watching ten of the men that tormented Wasps into distraction look so lacklustre. It is a stranger sight still witnessing some of them fail to engage their opponents physically.

Passion was once de rigueur at Sharmans Cross Road but at the moment it's just dour rugger.

It should be said that the home side were without key players in Nick Baxter and Jim Jenner - both men should return at some stage in the next fortnight - and that the club have committed the cardinal sin of raising expectations.

Last season's run to the cup semi-final and fourth place in the league, both club bests, have marked them out as something of a scalp.

"We've bought the T-shirt, now we've got to wear it," is Maynard's regular assertion. But as the weeks go by and the defeats mount up, that T-shirt is beginning to look a bit tatty. What's needed now is a generous clothing allowance to buy a new one.

PERTEMPS BEES: D Knight; Piotrowski, Woof, Davies (Williams-Greenaway, 58), Takarangi; Walsh, P Knight (Richardson, 58); Thorp, Miles (Merritt, 58), O'Keefe (Long, 48), Walton, Orgee, Fakatou (Hughes, 69), Carter, White (Hurrell, 48; Zaltzman, 78).

EXETER: G Staniforth (A Staniforth, 77); Lewsey, A Fatialofa (Murdoch 48), M Fatialofa, Kingdom (Ward, 61); Yapp, Thomas; Porte (Brooking, 64), Blythe, Davis (Liddington, 64), Bentley, Robert Baxter (Sims, 64), Walker, Willis (Miller, 64), Richard Baxter.

Referee: T Beddow (RFU).