England's top clubs, willing to reshape the Allied Dunbar league structure to add a European dimension to their new season, should learn tomorrow whether their stubborn 11th-hour attempt to create a viable alternative tournament will receive the desired French embrace or just a resigned Gallic shrug.

A gathering of the top 24 French clubs in Toulouse today will be followed by the all-important meeting between a delegation of their representatives, headed by Serge Blanco, and French Rugby Federation officials in the same city 24 hours later. Any chance of a new cross-border competition to replace the worse-for-wear Heineken Cup, which the English clubs have abandoned, hinges on the French federation's blessing as required by International Board rules.

With Premiership teams, not to mention supporters and sponsorship managers, screaming for the domestic fixture list with only a month to go before the season kicks off, even English First Division Rugby officials admit things are being cut fine.

The Rugby Football Union's new management board chairman Brian Baister dismissed the logistics as "impossible" last week; subsequent correspondence led to a more diplomatic "partnership" statement yesterday, in which the RFU "agreed to open urgent discussions with the other unions". Baister has already written to them but, in his absence yesterday, words like "impractical" were still doing the rounds at Twickenham.

Since Bath won the Heineken Cup in January, the debate on the event's future has rumbled on like an old-style rolling maul. Whether it leads anywhere before the 1999-2000 will, as always, depend on commercial factors as much as players' preferences.

Doug Ash, the chief executive of English First Division Rugby, was claiming yesterday that any new tournament would not be any worse off in this regard because he believes Heineken and BSkyB have already decided to pull the plug.

European Rugby Cup organisers, whose goose will be cooked if the French federation gives the nod to a fresh start, still insist their tournament will start in mid-September. "While I accept we're going to have to run uphill quite fast over the next week or so, equally I don't think ERC has a viable alternative," said Ash, galvanised by the decision of nine leading French clubs to withdraw from the existing European set-up last week. "Clearly what we want is not an odds-on favourite to happen, but we'll give it our best shot."

To try and buy more time, there is even the bizarre prospect of premier English clubs being issued with the first five weeks of the fixture-list, with the rest to follow. If the European green light is given, drastic changes will have to be made to the original structured season of 26 league games in total, and Ash confirmed at least two proposals are on the table.

The first would be to split the 14 League One clubs into two conferences of seven, yielding 12 regular-season games, or else have them play each other only once, with play-offs in the spring. Any September fixtures thus have to satisfy at least three criteria.

It is all getting a bit silly. London Scottish, for example, have found themselves pitted against five different opponents on the opening day already and the RFU, anxious not to upset the sponsors, are insisting a final verdict must be delivered by Sunday.

Ash remains upbeat. "It's not a deadline, it's a suggestion. If we come back and say `We're making huge progress', no-one's going to cut something off for the sake of a few days. Having said that, we've got days rather than weeks to get this organised."