I'd like to see it down to 3 but I think the RFL may well just be treading very carefully. The quota is 5 and when the club trained thing has run for a few years 5 overseas players will be it (as opposed to the 9 I think it is at the moment).Sutty wrote:Personally, I think the best option to achieve what Iestyn was trying to say would be to have an overseas quota of just 3 or 4.
If that works and clubs have been weaned off their obsession with overseas players maybe the RFL can think about lowering it once more and the clubs may realise it would not be the end of the world.
If they tried for three now I reckon it would have had no chance of getting adopted.
I agree, quality not quantity.With no exceptions for Islanders, kolpackplayers or whoever. If a player isn't born in this country or doesn't have a British passport, they shouldn't be allowed to play in Superleague. I think that if we do this, then clubs will focus on quality instead of quality. A Trent Barrett and a Matt Gidley in one team is worth 10 overseas players who are just here for an easy payday.
I don't think its the PC brigade the RFL are scared of but the clubs some who are still obsessed with overseas players.If the RFL stop appearing to be so scared of the PC brigade and those saying "oh, you can't exclude so and so, it's a breach of their rights". And stick to their guns and gradually, over teh next 5 or 6 seasons reduce the amount of overseas players to 3 or 4, then we'll start to see, obviously, a lot more local talent coming through the ranks, but they'll be helped, guided and mentored by some of the top Aussies.
Bradford made a challenge to the club trained rules for a very average player. They have a history of challenging changes to the overseas quota rules. They did last time the rules were changed when they challenged the fact players no longer qualified to come off-quota if they played a certain number of seasons here. They claim if they didn't and had they not got the changes they wanted then the changes could be deemed completely illegal but I think they were the only ones to challenge it.
Quite!For those of you who didn't see the Superleague show when Iestyn Harris made the comment about an age cap, it was just something that he said when put on the spot by Harry "I'll have a dig at Wigan whenever I can" Gration, when asked how can we limit the influx of foreign players in the Superleague. Iestyn said "I don't know, maybe an age cap, maybe reduce the number of players allowed from overseas. There are many different options". Or words to that effect. It wasn't a hairbrained, pre-meditated idea, certainly not as bonkers as Nobby's "let's buy RU players".
Dave