Quote Mrs Barista="Mrs Barista"So the "number" is..11?
McDonnell
Webster
Dobson
Green
Withers
Clinton
O'Hara
Paea
Mika
Lovegrove
Galea'"
For simplicity, yes - they're the 11 that would count as non-fed if it wasn't for exemptions and dispensations.
Not sure what will happen with George Griffin (or the lad Pearce at Hull), but for now I think they're young enough for it not to be an issue. And you'd have to say that they could legitimately feel aggreived if they didn't get dispensations, given the less than water-tight nature of the rule to date.
It's complicated by points scoring - on both sides of the chocolate river. Made easier by the complexity and ambiguity of it all. I notice we've started conflating 'local' and 'homegrown'.
I guess from Rovers point of view you have to consider it on three levels:
The Patriotic-moralistic - Whether you think a more stringently enforced quota will be good news for the England XVII or just for the next generation of Graham Holroyds and Mick Nanyns, Rovers have not been at the forefront of it.
The sporting-economic - It isn't pervisity that has led us here, it has been the incentives and imperitives we've found before us.
The political - perceptions matter, whether they are fair and reasonable or not. Other clubs ride out unpopularity - from Wigan's wrestling to Warrington's wage-bill wizardry. Probably better to be like this than a popular patsy like Cas. Probably.