Now that those who run the top echelon of English rugby - the national side - have been (more or less) sorted out, they will find Olly Barkley waiting. The same Barkley who stepped into the breach early in last year's World Cup and whose international career has been put on hold because of a pending court appearance, although he has been playing his socks off for Bath.

Brian Ashton, whose tenure as head coach was ended in such unhappy circumstances last week, made two decisions over midfield players for the 2008 RBS Six Nations Championship with which the individuals involved did not necessarily agree. He decided not to pick Barkley until the legal issues had been resolved and he withdrew Danny Cipriani from the team to play Scotland because the London Wasps back had been spotted on a late-night excursion to a West End nightclub.

Both took their medicine and Cipriani went on to a tour de force against Ireland, but Barkley remains in the “pending” tray. He understood Ashton's perspective, but it has been Barkley's triumph this season that he has not allowed personal issues to affect his day job, as Bath's play-offs position in the Guinness Premiership and semi-final berth in the European Challenge Cup (they play Sale Sharks on Saturday) suggest. For precisely that reason, he believes that he should be considered for the England tour to New Zealand in June, even though he must still face a court appearance on an assault charge in August, and the indications are that he will get his wish.

Essentially, for Barkley, nothing has changed from the World Cup. The alleged offence was committed last summer, but Barkley went to France, played fly half in the opening game against the United States after Jonny Wilkinson suffered an injury in training, was not implicated in the defeat by South Africa in the next game, played centre against Samoa and Tonga (his 21st cap), but not since.

“Brian rang to say he wasn't going to pick me for the Six Nations and I could understand where he was coming from,” Barkley said. “My feeling was that I was playing well, that it wasn't affecting me. I had every day changed [for court hearings] to my day off, so that nothing interfered with club training, and the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts were very flexible. I couldn't see why that wouldn't be the case with England. Brian had his thoughts, I had mine.”

The point for Barkley, 26, is that rugby has given him stability this season when other areas of his life have been topsy-turvy. Apart from the anxiety created by the court case, he has been busy organising the renovation of the house he shares in Bath and planning the next stage of his rugby career, moving to Gloucester next season after seven years with Bath.

“My mind has been going at a million miles an hour for the last eight or nine months,” he said. “I've come to training and felt, more than any other season, 'Thank God I'm on the pitch now getting on with what I'm paid to do and what I enjoy doing.'

“I know where I am on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, it's a very structured area of my life. I have that order which I may not have had in other areas - builders not turning up, fitting court appearances in, keeping in touch with the family.

“I knew that if I went home at 4.30 having trained well, having done everything I could to make sure we go well, I go well, on the weekend, then I'd be a happy person. It gave me something to fall back on, which was important for me and my family, because the last thing my parents, my brother and sister would want to see was the rugby not going so well. They've been there for me the whole time, so that had to be there for them.”

But just when Bath are on the cusp of winning a trophy, Barkley is to up sticks and swap the Recreation Ground for Kingsholm. “In the next two years, I will earn less at Gloucester, but I thought that if I re-signed with Bath, I would remain here until the end of my career,” he said. “I didn't want to get to 34 or 35 and ask, 'What if? What if I had gone to Gloucester, been around new players and new coaches, would that have made me a better player?'

“If I go and it goes wrong, it goes wrong. Not one day goes by when I don't think how much I'll miss everyone at Bath, but Gloucester are going in the direction I wanted.”