if you say so, I'd suggest that what we saw today was a failure of junior numbers, level of coaching available to players, players not playing week in and week out at a high intensity and a lack of mental preperation. I don;t see how Rovers having 8 overseas players would make one jot of difference to any of that.

Watching the defensive skills of our backline is like watching 3rd grade here. That is down to poor defensive coaching from age 5.

This thread is like the circumlocution office. Until all clubs embrace the principles of fewer overseas players and redirect resources and energy properly onto youth development, we'll never know what is achievable. You know what Rovers are doing is within the rules but not praiseworthy in any arena apart from providing employment to the likes of Ben Fisher. Why you think today's effort is some sort of justification for Rovers having 10 overseas players next year is baffling.

Some of the best players SL has seen have been overseas players plucked from relative obscurity. Whilst some of the worse have been those with big reputations. Players should be taken on face value not on nationality or history. The overseas rules will deal with the lack of homegrown talent but it will take a few years to bear fruit and have a real effect. In the mean time all coaches will do what they can within the rules to win games for their club and their club's fans.

Hull KR can't possibly have this many overseas players in the future, so why the worry? The outrage they seem to have caused on here smacks of hidden agendas to me.

So when the quota is working, will it... erm... work? French pop music didn't seem to benefit much from being guaranteed airtime on French radio. The Russian football league has introduced a 6(russian)+5(foreigners) rule and has led to complacency amongst undroppable young Russian players according to a report I read in When Saturday Comes. It strikes me as enforcing a demand solution to a supply problem. What the RFL really need to do is get as many kids as possible well coached and having fun in warmish weather, long before SL clubs get their mits on them.

Until we try it, we won't know. The last time we had a semi-competitive international team was probably the early 90s. Not sure, but I don't remember teams having 10 overseas players in their team in those days. I remember us only having 3, in fact.


The principle was signed up to by the clubs in 2007, reported in The Independentdoesn't work, obviously, because some clubs have chosen not to enact the agreed principle and will be going into 2011 with several more overseas players than they had when they agreed to close the loopholes in Perpignan 3 and a half years ago.

No, it was a genuine question. As you say, we don't know. My suspicion is that people (excluding Smokey perhaps) must see the possible flaw in the system and choose not to speak about it for one of the following...

1. Genuine hope and/or desperation.
2. If we don't blame the Ockers (come over here, take our jobs ect), we have to admit they are just much better at RL.
3. In acknowledging that this is maybe not going to be a panacea, they lose the 'to strengthen SL and England's chances' and are left with only the 'its so unfair' end of the stick with which to beat Hull KR.

We're pinning a lot of hopes on just giving kids more of a chance without much different and visible (to me) going on to increase their chances of taking it. If we lost another two dozen antipodeans and promoted the best 24 players from the Championship will that get us closer? Because until we start producing better players, no policy is going to make a difference. Back-end regulations are a poor substitute for large numbers of well-nurtured talented players.

And if I may add.
Having the pick of englands youth still hasn't helped the association game win anything of note for how long?
Longer than Rugby League has been trying to win anything IIRC.

The point though, is that all SL clubs signed up to the principles of eliminating loopholes and reducing overseas players to 5 in 2007. You can argue that it might not work, as it's convenient to hypothesise this for the purposes of defending the increase to 10 at Rovers, but the facts are that the principles have not been enacted, and in some cases clubs have actually gone in the opposite direction. Why do you think all SL clubs signed up to the principle of reducing loopholes in 2007 and reducing quotas? You seem to be saying that:
1) The universally approved principles in 2007 are now fundamentally flawed, and consequently
2) It doesn't matter that the principles have not been enacted because they would make no difference at all.

I don't fall into any of the 3 categories you mention. I'm with all 12 clubs that agreed the principle in 2007, because it does sound a sensible thing to enact. If you remember, virtually all of the comments were it was very good news and that although 10 to 5 would be challenging, clubs were given ample time to organise themselves to deliver it.

All teams have too many overseas players imo. Some more than others.

1. It might work.
2. Even if it doesn't work, it is easier and more palatable than asking deeper questions about what underlies the chasm between the Australian system and our own.
3. What it will do, eventually, even if it doesn't produce better British players or a stronger comp, is to make sure the SL retains (or regains) a British identity. Whether this Britocracy is a laudable or even real goal I don't know, but sport is about identity to a large extent.

Hooray!
This and reducing the number of overseas players are not mutually exclusive.
It is laudable IMO, but the point is that, as it stands, it's not a given that it will ever happen. Given the extent and number of get-outs and exemptions that clubs and players are actively pursuing, we might be here in 2014 discussing why Rovers have 8 homegrown players and 17 overseas players in their 25. We agreed in 2007 as a sport that loopholes should be closed, but the whole thing is in more of a mess now than ever. Unless clubs stop publicly signing up to one set of principles for the good of the sport (whether you think that's misplaced or not) and pi$$ about doing the exact opposite, we'll never find out.Not really, just a pain in the @ss that's likes a good argument.
Go back to the early 90s. My best ever GB rugby league moment was when we beat Australia at Wembley with 12 men. Were First Division teams then playing with 10 overseas players? I'll say it again, and at my age my memory's not what it was, but I remember around that time we were looking at who our 3 overseas players were. The competition did not collapse as far as I remember, and in some aspects was, if not couture, at least quirky and interesting.

If only it was that simple. We just need to send all the best players to Wigan and have most of the rest of the league return to part-time status and we'll batter the Aussies! In other sports news Celtic intend win back the trophy formerly known as the European Cup by picking only Glaswegians.
Prior to the 1982 Invincibles tour there had been a period without any imports at all, iirc.

Work needs to be done, but if we think a quota is going solve our problems (even when it starts working) by itself I think people are in for a disappointment.

Rovers have tried to assemble the best squad they can in the circumstances and within the rules as they have been (repeatedly re-)written. We've found ourselves with more flexibility than most and like most we've taken as much advantage as we could. This is not praiseworthy, but it doesn't justify the level of opprobrium we get either IMO.

Our fed-qualified Aussies are 32 (Vella and Galea) and 29 (Newton and Fisher). Berrigan turns 32 this week and Manu is 30. It has been more phased than the RFL wanted, but 3 or 4 years late they'll get there.

Now you're just being silly. The point it that the competition wouldn't collapse if every club actually had only 5 overseas players, and, coincidentally or not, the last time we had a semi-competent national team, I don't recall clubs having 10 overseas players. Happy to be corrected. I'm not advocating something radical here, just supporting the principle all the clubs signed up to in 2007 and a watered down version of what we once had.



Who's saying it will solve all the problems? Not me. Everyone signed up to the principle three and a half years ago, as it was agreed to be in the best interests of the British game and there was a sensible phased plan of implementation. No one said it was the be all and end all. Self interest has led to the abandonment of the principle by any means possible. That doesn't mean that the principle in itself was wrong (indeed, all clubs signed up to it), just that clubs are self-interested and happy to continue on in the opposite direction if their academy can't deliver and the British transfer market is more difficult than they'd like.


Indeed not. Perhaps adding another 2 to your overseas contingent year on year and tipping over the double digit mark is emotive to some, and the two responses of Rovers fans, ie shoulder-shrugging or blind & robust defence, as opposed to them being able to say, "Do you know what? I don't agree with it either", as Smokey TA and I feel able to say about Leeds and FC respectively with a smaller contingent of overseas player, is what throws petrol on the bonfire.


Wind back 3 and a half years when we all agreed the principles and the common need to close loopholes and this has spawned multiple further exemptions/dispensations to the point where overseas numbers at some clubs are going up not down. If you believe legal teams won't continue to scrabble about for loopholes, you're naive in the context of what is going on right now. Clubs aren't embracing the principles they formally signed off and until they do (and there's precious little evidence at some clubs of any intention to do so), I won't hold out any hope of the actual overseas numbers coming down. And, of course, other than being able to name 8 token homegrown players, the cost effectiveness of a really strong academy is then a major long-term consideration

The quota wasnt modified randomly or unevenly, it was modified with the full knowledge and agreement of the SL chairmen who have then gone back on it.

There is no difference, in principle, between what Wigan did in regards to the SC, using what they thought was a loophole, clearly against the intentions of the SC to try and gain advantage. HKA are doing the same.


If I'anson, though good enough for Hull KA to be competitive, wasnt good enough for Hull KA to win anything, then your choice shouldnt be just discard him and find an Aussie, by doing that you are failling. Hull KR had the opportunity to keep I'anson, they had the opportunity to replace I'anson with an overseas player but replace one of the many other overseas players with a British player.

the dispensation was granted to your club. Not Lovegrove. Lovegroves change in status after that event is irrelevant, the fact is you are benefitting from an opportunity, and will continue to do so for as long as you keep him to employ one more overseas player than any other club. if thats how you need to rationalise, thats how you need to rationalise. Still doesnt stop the criticism being valid.

no, it isnt. The quota is integral because the limit on overseas players is what will force clubs to look deeper, take more risks and give more opportunities to more young players.

The fact is, yes the NRL's development system is much better, you know why? because it has to be. The NRL doesnt have another league where it can take from to fill its rosters. So the NRL need to produce their own, they need to make the best of what they have because they cant go and get a Blake Green or Kylie Lueluai from another league like we do. This is why the NRL invests more in youth development, more in coaching, more in sports science, more in getting the best from what they have, making sure that the players they have are the very best they could be. We dont do that to anywhere near the level the NRL do because when we need a player, we dont look at Chaz I'anson and make him the best he can be, we give him a shot, if he doesnt claim the shirt we can always go get another overseas player.

necessity is the mother of invention, until we make it necessary for clubs to make the best from their british players, we wont see the invention and innovation we need to catch up to the NRL but also to not only fulfill the potential of individual players but of the game as a whole.