"Is there anyone left in Tonga and Samoa? The entire male population of these islands appears to be playing in the English leagues, and, in common with most of the teams we have encountered this season, Saturday's opponents had their quota.

They also had the regulation South Africans, who seem to come in packages, with a goal-kicking fly- half paired in an Asda style offer with a Honey Monster forward.

By a bizarre twist of the Kolpak Agreement, players from all these developing countries do not count as being from overseas, according to the RFU's definition.

There is no doubt that these players raise the standard of the teams in which they play, and, by extension, the quality of the League.

How they fit with the concept of community clubs is more obscure. All clubs began as amateur institutions existing to provide the opportunity for local people to indulge their desire to play and follow the game.

This must remain a more important aim than offering employment to overseas players of varying abilities, though there is no doubt that their presence can be an inspiration in raising s tandards.

Our own experience of overseas players has been mixed. Some individuals, outstanding as players and people, have been an excellent cultural fit and contributed much to the team and the community.

There is no doubt that our current example, Simon Mulholland, joins Casey Mee and Ian Voortman in this category. Others have been unsatisfactory in a variety of ways.

Like all team players, it is important that they offer more of themselves to their adopted cause than 80 minutes on a Saturday, and perceive the team goal as greater than their individual agenda.

Finding these players is much more difficult than unearthing foreigners prepared to take the club's money.

The attractiveness of overseas players is that they appear to offer the quick fix. It is like pushing the trolley through Asda and collecting missing components from the shelves, with the big ball carrier department resembling the turkey aisle at Christmas. This is often at the expense of concern for what is happening to restock the shelves.

I would prefer to see our modest resources applied to identifying and developing local talent, building on the excellent work being done to provide playing opportunities for young players locally.

It remains unproven whether we can develop, within Cumbria, sufficient playing resources to provide a National League team, but this should remain our first objective, and our efforts devoted to creating a sustainable future whose aims are consistent with the club's proud history.

As for last week's game, the pattern was much the same as previous weeks. Some excellent, sustained attacks characterised the first half, with the difference that, this week, they were not converted into scores.

When DMP came back at us in the second half, there was no lead to protect, and at 26 - 3 down, memories of last season's unhappy visits to this venue seemed uncomfortably recent.

However, a hat-trick of outstanding tries in as many minutes seemed to have brought a bonus point and, when veteran front rowers Jon Nicholson and Jimmy Bracken conjured one against the head in the game's final scrum, the visiting fans briefly began to believe in magic.

Sadly, such belief proved ill founded, and even the bonus point disappeared with the last kick of the match.

The product may have been disappointing, but the process was largely sound, leaving sufficient grounds for optimism that meeting our Waterloo in Round Four of the Cup on Saturday could - possibly, if all goes well - provide another dramatic upset.

Men of Cumbria could still rise to glory.