Following months of negotiations England supremo Clive Woodward was a relieved man today when he was finally able to unveil his elite player programme.
Woodward detailed his timetable for England at Twickenham as he builds towards autumn Tests against Tri-Nations giants New Zealand, Australia and South Africa, followed by the 2003 Six Nations Championship.
An agreement has been reached whereby Woodward and his England staff will have the top players for 20 designated days outside of normal Test week preparations between now and the end of the season.
Sixteen of those days will be for designated training purposes, while there are three days of fitness testing and a one-day December debrief following the three Tests a month earlier.
Woodward's 50-man elite training squad, which he announced yesterday, will assemble for a two-day gathering in Surrey next week.
That will be followed by two further two-day meetings later this month, while two more have been arranged for late October after the opening rounds of European games.
And prior to England launching their Six Nations campaign against France next February, there will be a three-day squad session.
The elite player programme will be reviewed at the end of each year, but it was hailed today by various Twickenham top brass as a major breakthrough.
"It has been worth waiting for," said Woodward, reflecting on prolonged discussions between the RFU and Premier Rugby, the organisation that oversees England's Premiership clubs.
"For me, 20 days seems the right number to prepare an elite squad. I genuinely believe that there will now be no more talk of club versus country - this will be the end of it.
"I will do everything to work in partnership with the Premier clubs. That is the only way that we will be successful," Woodward added.
"We have had a lot of bad press over the past five years or so, but we have now come up with a plan and everyone can move forward.
"We are all speaking as one - what we have got is really workable."
Woodward is hopeful that clubs having Sunday fixtures immediately before the New Zealand Test in November and French Six Nations clash will be able to rearrange those games so that Test players with those clubs can prepare properly for the internationals.
If that proves impossible, though, then Woodward will have no problem with it.