according to the Hull Daily Mail article:

"Mason will be granted ‘special status’ to be removed from the overseas quota under the Cotonou Agreement between the EU and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States."

"" It's similar to any player with an islands' heritage from the Southern Hemisphere.

"So, there's no reason why Mason shouldn't come to England in this way."

show us the "proper" medals they hand out for anything other than winning? Beaten Grand Finalists or Challenge Cup runners up may as well have not bothered turning up........HKA fans have defended their clubs overseas brigade with the argument that they will get a better team.......they may win something when in reality, their club is jetisoning young talent to clubs like Quins in favour of average Aussies.....Mason being the perfect example. He couldn't get a gig in the NRL after 2 very average seasons and yet East Hullians are creaming themselves over him...

It's Hull KR's feck-up on Galea's Maltese passport that is the route cause of this, however. Staggering that a begrudging 1 year extension for a partly crocked 32 year old Aussie that never played SOO or internationals could set the reasonable progress made by some clubs on loophole reduction back significantly.

Quote ="Mrs Barista"Knew I hadn't imagined it - was the final regular round game, v Bradford, not the Wigan play-off. 16 British players. Only 10 homegrown, though, how disappointing. www.slstats.org/2007/9/14/Hull+F ... Bulls.html'" I believe you were thinking of this Wigan game for the high amount of British players, 13 British of which 7 were homegrown. www.slstats.org/2009/9/4/Wigan+W ... ll+FC.html

Quote ="Mrs Barista"Knew I hadn't imagined it - was the final regular round game, v Bradford, not the Wigan play-off. 16 British players. Only 10 homegrown, though, how disappointing. www.slstats.org/2007/9/14/Hull+F ... Bulls.html'" I believe you were thinking of this Wigan game for the high amount of British players, 13 British of which 7 were homegrown. www.slstats.org/2009/9/4/Wigan+W ... ll+FC.html

Shame they don't consider financial sustainability to be an issue.

No worries, there's always the CVA option, an area that you do have experience

This is the attitude that makes SL lower intensity. Oh only one team can win it so what;s the point in turning up. In the NRL there are three things that define your season.
First making the play offs
Second making the final
Third winning it

Until teams get desperate to make the play offs you won;t see intensity in the mid to lower table like you have in the NRL.

Quote ="Mrs Barista"Knew I hadn't imagined it - was the final regular round game, v Bradford, not the Wigan play-off. 16 British players. Only 10 homegrown, though, how disappointing. www.slstats.org/2007/9/14/Hull+F ... Bulls.html'" Regular league game? Pah When you can field 16 in a play off game come back and boast!

Quote ="Mrs Barista"Knew I hadn't imagined it - was the final regular round game, v Bradford, not the Wigan play-off. 16 British players. Only 10 homegrown, though, how disappointing. www.slstats.org/2007/9/14/Hull+F ... Bulls.html'" Regular league game? Pah When you can field 16 in a play off game come back and boast!

That means they don't count on the overseas quote (Kolpak ruling), not that they count as federation trained. And it's exactly why the RFL, following UEFA, is moving the quota towards training over nationality.

And chief executive Nigel Wood says that move is perfectly within the game's rules.

"We're happy no rules have been broken and Mason will qualify as a Federation trained player," he said.

"It's similar to any player with an islands' heritage from the Southern Hemisphere.

Now I am confused.

you and everyone else!

Indeed it looks like the RFL have just chucked the 'Fed Trained' rule in the bin on this one.
Even as a HKR fan I'm perplexed by how they came by that decision.

not that i agree with it, but with the expected exodus of young english players and aussies going back to the nrl because of the money,is it possible the rfl are showing a bit of forethought here by relaxing these rules 'now' in an attempt to offset any damage which could be done to the SLE after the 2012 season ?.

Agreed. We're still going on a single quote though - hopefully there'll be some clarification soon.




Don't know if we're just being generous, but that had occurred to me too.

It was dismissed at the time but...
'His manager has stressed to interested parties he could yet be classed as a 'non-overseas' signing due to his mother's Tongan heritage.'

[urlhttp://www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/HULL-KR-Robins-deal-strong-says-Mason/article-2571942-detail/article.html[/url

4th paragraph from the bottom. Maybe they knew something was in the pipeline[size=200?[/size

Hang on a minute - if Aussies don't want to play over here because of exchange rate / tax issues, what difference does the colour of their passport make?

Unless you're saying the RFL are relaxing the rules so we can all watch 17 sh*tbag reserve graders of islander descent play in SL in 2012 rather than young English players?

i'm hoping the rules are not being relaxed.

if more clubs are possibly being accepted into the nrl then those players need to come from somewhere.
as SL is the second strongest comp in RL,then were would you look to fill these places?.
couple the above with the new nrl contract and the exchange rate then there could be problems on the playing front for the SLE.if there is a mass exodus of players to the nrl then those players need to be replaced.

If there are already loopholes in the federation trained quota so that tongans ect count as federation trained, the only thing to increase the numbers of british players in super league has to be a minimum number of homegrown players in the matchday 17

totally agree

I find it amazing the effort that has been taken to get a player who is well past his sell by date. If the same effort had been put into developing a british future Willie Mason then that would be applauded.

At his peak he was an awesome player, but as usual, the brits have fallen for the 3 card trick and signed someone who is only here for a holiday/pension payout.

Sadly it is quite obvious now that the game in this country and the people who run the clubs will never change.

The losers sadly are the the international game and what's left of any british "development" scheme run by whoever.

All that voluntary hard work, effort and time by friends, family and people who REALLY care being dismissed so easily.

What a tragedy for the game and it shows no sign of getting better.

RL is a brilliant game in spite of this kind of thing.

Get it right, at all levels, and it could become one of the global dominating games, but this requires HARD work and you begin to wonder if people really care or want to do the HARD work.

Ah well there's always "my Club", "my Club", "my Club", "my Club" and that's enough for most it would appear and if that's the future then so be it.

Is this not what we said would happen Leaguefan , and although at the moment it is HKR feeling the brunt of the criticism , every other club would do the same thing to improve their chances , despite what some on here post , they are just in a better position and dont need to , but they still would if they had to

We have posters constantly telling us its a business , then they expect clubs to behave like charities

So why isnt every club doing what Hull KR are doing?

Fact is most clubs have seen the need to improve youth development and have more young british players playing, but a few have failed, yet strangely dont expect to be criticised for this failure

I didn't say "proper" medals were handed out for not winning. I said what I thought would represent a reasonable season.

I dare say most players have previously played at clubs other than their current one.

I'm not even convinced Mason will get here, I'm certainly not "creaming" myself at the prospect. He could be a strong addition to our squad but previous reputations, as far as I'm concerned, count for little (e.g. Danny Buderus), it's what players do for my club that matters to me.