As well as 16 players on international duty, England's Claudia MacDonald is still out with a neck problem, although Nancy McGillivray is set to return after more than year out due to a knee ligament injury.

The main advantage of playing when the WXV is on is that Exeter will have a squad made up mainly of English-qualified players.

It could allow them more flexibility later in the season with clubs having to field 13 English-qualified players in each match over the course of the season.

If Exeter can field more English players early on it would allow them more non-English qualified slots in later rounds and still stay within the rules.

"There is method to some of their madness, not a lot because I do think they could have shifted it back a bit, or shifted WXV forward a bit and still not clashed," added Appleby.

"They never want international competitions to clash with this league because it is meant to be the best in the world, and that's what they want to show.

"But these two weeks are going to look a bit different - three realistically because the players finish on 13 October so it's unlikely they'll be in game three either - so we're looking at game four and beyond."