ALLOW me to paint an abstract picture to illustrate a point.

Wales have football internationals two weeks apart and so keen is manager John Toshack for Robert Earnshaw to be fit and refreshed to play in both of them that he keeps the striker holed up in Cardiff for the full fortnight, preventing him from returning to Nottingham to play in Forest's winner-takes-all promotion clash on the middle Saturday.

Forest pay Earnshaw's weekly wage, have a contract that stipulates he should be in Nottingham for the game, and the support of the world governing body whose regulations demand that international managers release players to clubs for that very weekend.

Yet Toshack ignores them and issues a hands-off warning to Forest.

I stress that as far as Robert Earnshaw and Wales are concerned, this is a hypothetical sketch.

It's not though if you're James Haskell and England rugby.

Haskell was supposed to be in Paris on Saturday playing for his club Stade Francais. It was a crucial match in Stade's bid to make the French championship play-offs and, with it, guarantee them Heineken Cup rugby next season.

Stade are the Manchester United of European rugby. Big, rich, successful, with a brand to sell. And the parallels don't stop there. Not only are Stade huge but their dominance is being challenged in their home city.

Racing-Metro are to Stade what City is to United – their rise from relative obscurity having been fuelled by a fat chequebook.

If Racing make it into Europe next season then it will almost certainly be at the direct expense of their Paris neighbours.

And that can't be contemplated by Stade's flamboyant owner Max Guazzini. The impact on the finances would be catastrophic. To understand it, imagine what a season without Champions League football would do to Sir Alex.

In that respect, Stade's clash with Toulouse on Saturday was crucial; a seminal 80 minutes in the club's development.

Guazzini is a trend-setter and his example of moving big matches to larger venues has been a template for clubs in England like Wasps, Saracens and Harlequins to copy.

Saturday's game against Toulouse was relocated to the Stade de France and Haskell's image on posters was central to hawking 80,000 tickets.

That's why Guazzini blew his top when he found out Haskell wouldn't be there.

So who is to blame?

In the eye of the maelstrom is Haskell himself. And if we were to learn exactly what he told Johnson about his club contract, and provisions made within it for his England commitments, then it would be enlightening.

Either way, the most wronged party appears to be Guazzini. And once that became clear, then Johnson and his RFU boss Rob Andrew should have conceded.

But they remained belligerent throughout to the point that even a bid by another French club Toulon to fly home their contracted player, Jonny Wilkinson, on a specially chartered jet for their game against Biarritz on Saturday, was also rebuffed. The outcome of it all is that Haskell stayed in London while Stade were left counting the cost of their 29-0 defeat by Toulouse.

Guazzini says in future he will demand £153,000 per man if he signs any more England players – the same as the RFU pay Premiership clubs for use of internationals.

But a more likely outcome is that Haskell will be the last current England star signed by Guazzini.

Who knows, this episode may even result in Haskell cutting short his career in France?

And that, I suspect, will suit Johnson just fine.