What, specifically, do you feel that they did wrong? Genuine question given that I have no idea whether anyone at the club knew he needed an English exam, or indeed whether he has been paid his full salary while waiting.

Not taking the advice of an immigration specialist.
Not having conditions in the contract about only paying minimal amounts.
Not deciding, when it became clear it was getting protracted, to let him play for someone over there to keep fit.
Not monitoring his fitness whilst he was waiting to come over.
Not arranging for him to train with a professional side whilst waiting to come over.
Not making him fly over AS SOON AS HIS VISA was granted.
Signing him in the first place.

To be fair it may be, but if you work properly with the system in place you should have no problems.

If Hame had chosen to use his apparent NZ nationality, he could have been here months ago. Whoever advised him either didn't understand the new system or didn't advise him properly.

We new the visa situation had changed and after the Crocker fiasco dont you think we should have employed some visa professionals to go over the application - it would have saved at least 2 months ( and he would have been over here so maybe would not have damaged his hand)

He should, at the very least, travelled as a NZ national and counted on the quota this season, and then applied for the relevant paperwork once here to mean he could be taken off it it.

1. Give you that, especially following the Crocker fiasco.
2. How do you know there weren't? I have no idea if he was paid his full wage or a nominal fee.
3. Judgment call. Balancing the risk of injury against fitness, with no clear idea how long the delay would be. Easy choice in hindsight, not so much at the time.
4. My guess would be that up until he injured his hand he was probably keeping as fit as could be expected without playing.
5. They may have tried and failed? Wouldn't necessarily be that easy to arrange, and again they wouldn't have known how long the delay was.
6. He flew as soon as he had the documents to do so.
7. Eh? He's just the kind of player we need.

My take on it is that the club are to blame for not taking advice and/or keeping a closer eye on his application. They should have been aware that he was applying on his Tongan passport and that there would be a English test required as a result. They should not have assumed that his time spent in NZ would bypass this requirement - they should have made damn sure that they [iknew[/i for certain. OK, so I understand that there are now better checks in place for future applications, but it look like we learned nothing from the Crocker experience at all. And as far as I know we still aren't using an expert for guidance/assistance, which is just plain daft.

Otherwise I don't see that we could have done much else with the information available at the time as things played out.

Assuming he had any advice at all. I don't believe that he had any from the club, because the Tongan passport thing came as an unpleasant surprise to them. Which is pretty stupid given our experience with Crocker.

espcially when they were offered the advice, for free, by a fan.

Exactly.

If I had been Rule I would have had someone who knew what they were doing go over Hame's application with a fine tooth comb before ever allowing it to be sent off for processing. For the sake of a few days delay we could have saved weeks if not months.

I understand that a system of checking is now in place (although AFAIK with no expert input) but this is locking the stable door after not one but TWO horses have bolted.

So you don't want us to sign quality players?

Yes I do.

So why was signing him in the first place a mistake by the club?

Better and cheaper available, IMHO.

Really? Who?

Firstly do you actually know what he is on or is it the usual rumours? Also how do you know who else was available and how much they wanted?

Also I doubt there were many better and cheaper as he is one of the best around at what he does.

Name them.

How do you know what he is on?