Everyone seems to overlook that there is NO restriction on overseas players whatsoever.

Yes there are rules which say you must have a certain amount of home grown and federation trained players but these can be of any nationality.

Anything else would be discrimination on the grounds of nationality which is not acceptable.

If the UK government says to an individual from abroad yes you can work over here, then the RFL has no right to have rules that say you can't.

That doesn't mean you have to employ them but you can't refuse to employ them simply because they are born abroad.

People talk about the England team but we have players like Sean Long who for a number of years has refused to play international rugby. What benefits does Sean Long bring to Super League that a player of similar ability from overseas wouldn't? Sean Long says he will never play for England, at least the overseas player can qualify through residency after 4 years like Willie Manu.

Listen I have no problem with Sean Long not playing for England in fact I think the England team is better off without him. He walked out on his country in the middle of a real hard tour leaving his team mates to battle on, so good riddance.

But surely if you want to place restrictions on overseas players like Willie Manu and Clint Newton but not Sean Long then logically you must be racist. Of those 3 one of them is available for England, another soon will be and the other is Sean Long.

The home grown requirement for 8 players in a 25 man squad is a great rule and gives all the assurance anyone could want. Rovers are behind the game in the youth stakes but busting a gut to catch up after so long having no real chance to attract the best local talent. And they are closing the gap rapidly.

It takes time but Rovers are not too far away now from the conveyor belt of youngsters reaching first team level. Will we still want overseas stars? Of course we will. Look at Wigan the best youth production there is but still they raid Melbourne Storm on mass for signings.

Hull fans are getting a bit agitated and I must confess, if they were in the frame for Willie Mason I would be too. That's understandable. He's the box office they've always craved, the signing they've always wanted. Goodness they were wetting themselves over Crocker they'd be in convulsions over Willie Mason.

They are worried they are anxious we have been there too, so on banace I think we should be forgiving of their pretend morality about overseas signings.

A slightly weird rant about FC and Long, but the point here isn't about Mason, is it? Have you even read the thread? The point is that the RFL set out its principles of reducing quota players to 5 by 2011 and increasing homegrown player requirements years ago. Thanks to a set of exemptions and rule-changing by them, they are now in the embarrassing position of having some clubs having the same if not more overseas players at the end of the first franchise period than at the beginning. If the 5 rule was never legal/operational, they look like @rses for communicating it to start with, and if it was legal/operational they look like @rses for allowing exemptions that could allow some clubs 10+. Mason is a top player, box office as you say, and would be a good addition to Rovers and SL. But this has nothing to do with the quota situtation as if Rovers had to keep to 5 they would have signed him anyway and offloaded a combination of Webster/Fisher/Galea/whoever to do so as he'd be the first name on the teamsheet.

The RFL have made a mess of it. As far as clubs go. Every club will do what is permitted to their own benefit.
I think Huddersfield for example are playing the long game by hoovering up every available talented British player, knowing it's going to leave them in a strong position down the line. It's not a case of doing the right thing.

In a nutshell.

The only club who aren't recruiting from the Southern Hemisphere are Quinns and they are currently bottom of the ladder.

...and pretty skint if most of their fans are to be believed on their forum

That may well be the major reason why they have followed such a recruitment path.

I'd agree with you there, if you've ever talked to any of the quins fans in their bar after their losses a lot of them would gladly swap their highly acclaimed new homegrown recruitment policy for a few star names form oz to change their fortunes, as any superleague level fan of any team would.

Basically I agree. To mitigate their mistake, and with fed-trained exemptions ultimately available to any Tom, Dick and Kiwi, they should have at very least cut non-fed to 4.
What is happening at some clubs isn't the issue when judging the RFL. The telling stat will be total number of non-England qualified players across the League. Mind, with the Willie Manu situation, even that isn't straight forward.



It would be of massive benefit to the already strong clubs who could afford to sacrifice a point and would weaken those clubs struggling to keep up; If it weren't discriminatory to the point of illegality - imagine if Michelin knocked stars off because one of the chefs was French.

That would be outrageous. Especially with Michelin being French.