Throughout November there was a sense of England and France being in denial about the true impact of the spending largesse of their respective clubs.

No one wanted to see the link between the growing number of foreign players in the Premiership and Top 14 and the declining form of the respective English and French national teams.

All Black coach Graham Henry suggested England's longer term prospects would be greatly enhanced by reducing the numbers of New Zealanders playing in the Premiership. That was easily dismissed, though, as the wishful thinking of an All Black coach sick of seeing so many of his best players lured north.

No one seemed to think in the wake of three crushing, consecutive defeats that Henry might just have a point. England were fairly awful throughout November, their one shining light, according to manager Martin Johnson, being the performances of Riki Flutey.

Yes the same Riki Flutey who couldn't hold down a place at the Hurricanes. That's what it has come to for England - picking up the scraps swept from New Zealand's table.

That's because opportunities for English and French players are desperately hard to come by.

Last weekend's Heineken Cup games showed just how much influence foreign players have in Europe now. All 24 teams were in action and almost one third were not eligible for either France, England, Scotland, Ireland, Italy or Wales.

New Zealanders constituted about a quarter of those 134 players ineligible for European teams, Pacific Islanders about a quarter and the remainder were Australians, South Africans, Argentinians and Georgians.

That is a huge number of places to give away to foreign players whose presence blocks local talent.

The numbers need further analysis to really show how detrimental the foreign invasion is to English and French rugby. While around one third of the Heineken Cup players last week were not eligible for any of the Six Nations sides, the numbers of non-English players in Premiership sides is closer to 50 per cent.

Take Gloucester as an example - they had Kiwis Greg Somerville and Willie Walker in their match-day 22 to face Calvisano last week and Pacific Islander Apo Satala. They also had Scottish caps Alasdair Dickinson and Scott and Rory Lawson, Welsh caps Gareth Cooper and Matthew Watkins and Italian internationals Carlos Nieto and Marco Bortolami.

In their 22, only 12 players were eligible for England. The foreign influence stretches deeper into the club as not included in the 22 for various reasons were Scottish lock-loose forward Alistair Strokosch and halfback Ross McMillan, Fijian backrower

Akapusi Qera, Welsh loose forward Gareth Delve and French hooker Olivier Azam.