TALKS have started that could lead to the biggest revamp in Scottish rugby since the four professional districts were cut to two in 1998. The proposal is to introduce a semi-professional "super league" between between the top end of the amateur game and the full-time clubs, Glasgow Warriors and Edinburgh.

Discussions are still at an early stage but initial hopes – or fears, depending on which side of the argument you are listening to – that the new level of competition could be set up as early as next season seem to be wide of the mark and the thinking is now that the new tier could be launched in 2017.

The talks involving the BT Premiership Forum, the umbrella group for the leading clubs, and the Scottish Rugby Union have taken as a starting point the union's official strategy document. It proposes an eight-team super league where clubs would not just play each other for a domestic crown but would also play in cross-border tournaments such as the British and Irish Cup, which the Scottish clubs pulled out of last season.

An SRU spokesman has confirmed that the discussions on "possible developments in the league" are taking place behind the scenes but insisted they are at such an early stage that the union cannot make any comment. Mike Dalgetty, the Melrose director of rugby who has taken over as chairman of the Premiership Forum, took a similar line, saying: "It is very early days, so it would be wrong to say anything at this stage."

The plans, which were discussed again this week, aim to address a major gap in the structure of the Scottish game. While there are systems in place for some fringe full-time players to get involved in domestic club games, there is also a strong feeling these matches do not prepare players for the pace and intensity of professional rugby. That is why the SRU is offering to invest in this new layer.

For core professionals coming back from injury, the standard of club games is not really a problem because all they really need is to test themselves in the heat of battle. However, for players who will spend most of the season playing for clubs, slotting back into the professional teams only during the international windows or when there is a run of injuries, they are facing a huge step up in the speed, size and power of the players they are up against.

The idea of the semi-professional league – the initial proposal was for eight teams but there are suggestions behind the scenes that it could be cut to six – is that it would provide a higher standard of rugby for the full-time players who are not needed on a weekend and and would also provide an easy and obvious gateway into professional rugby for senior players at the four BT Sport Scottish Rugby Academies – Edinburgh & East Lothian, based at Napier University; Caledonia, based at Aberdeen University; Borders, based at the Netherdale campus, Galashiels; and Glasgow & the West, based at Broadwood Stadium, Cumbernauld.

On top of that, the semi-professional element would provide a bank of reserve players for the full-time teams of players who are able to train more than the two sessions a week that is standard among the Premiership clubs.

There are, however, a huge number of complications.For example, the current thinking is that ambitious clubs would transform themselves into the new semi-pro units, but there are worries about which ones have the back-up to handle the transition and have the facilities to cope – they would need access to training facilities during the day, which could be awkward for those based in school grounds; may well need to play evening games, which means lights are essential; and would need to find the money for the extra running costs since any SRU contribution would be unlikely to cover them all.

If the talks do succeed in producing the Super League, it would simply be a case of Scotland catching up on the rest of the leading European rivals. Italy has the Excellenza, the top clubs in the Welsh Premiership have been semi professional or for years, the Irish provinces all run second teams that compete in the British & Irish Cup and the Championship in England ranges from full-time sides like Bristol gunning for promotion to those with more part-time players and more limited ambitions.

As both sides admit, there is still a lot of work to make this happen in Scotland, but after years when these ideas have been floating around without anybody seizing the initiative to act on them, now there is a willingness to explore the issues and to try to make the plan work.