I agree but it gets beyond a joke especially when you find yourself in this position. Was it Cas who get relegated when they finished higher than Cats?...shouldnt happen. Bottom should equal relegation. If they say they need time let them start at the bottom like Celtic did and they can build up against lesser teams/ squads

I don't condone you encouraging Toulouse to employ illegal immigrants

they can if they want...its where lots of the Celtic rejects went playing in France.

I think it should be different with Toulouse, because they already were an established RL team. (who were still allowed five overseas' players!)

so where Catalans but the RFL dont think about a level playing field

But Alan that was in the French League they now play in the English one, all should abide by the same rules.

Do you mean the rules the RFL make up as they go along to suit them

I thought I heard Phil COffey say at the LISA meeting that if we went down we would be looking into whether Gateshead had done anyhing illegal and if so we would be appealing if that is so, but it was quite noisey at that time, and I could have misunderstood. Perhaps someone will correct me.

Why not look into Batley then?

Refering to illegal Ausies i think and Gatesoz have a few Ausies dont they

He did but for what it's worth my view is that it's too late for that. Lets win on Sunday and hope results go our way for a change.

I think most fans know why we are in this situation but I think dignity is something worth retaining.

Don't think you can say dignity comes into it Frank. If a team employs players it knows(?) should not be here then they have cheated.

My obviously outdated view is if you have P&R then all teams should play and abide by the same rules.

I think Gateshead have 5 Aussies. Not sure how many they're allowed! I think a club taking it upon themselves to investigate another club just smacks of bitterness really. Asking the RFL to look into something is as far as I reckon it would be suitable to go, not investigating it as a club.

we can blame every one but ourselves and from the start of the season it was evident to every one what our problems were and they have not been addressed although i admit the refereeing decissions this season have indicated to me that the r l big knobs have not forgiven us for the outburst by alan rowley over the franchisesut i have to agree that as the applications goal posts were moved it was justified and we have paid the price unfortuatly,but the r l are now the laughing stock of the sporting arena

Like who ?

They have 8 Australians, (Nash, Russo, Kahler, Branighan, Youngquest, Franze, Aitken, & McBride) although Russo has now gone out on loan. They have one Fijian I think - Cakacaka.

Very interesting point about their visas, because I believe Gateshead were alerting other clubs about being able to employ these guys on student/working holiday visas, pre-season.

Branigan is here I believe on a Maltese passport

Are you talking about their back line

Speaking with SM the other week he said that they only had TWO Aussies, the rest were on European passports!

Maybe the accents have changed PL in Europe its been 12 months since I last went into Europe myself

Sorry for picking this out, but for sake of consistency does this mean you think we are wrong to ask for "special dispensation" on the salary cap should we be relegated ? If we are to join C1 (praying to Alah we don't) then we should abide by the rules in that league if we want to be pure as white snow and doing it the "right way" etc



Also hope Mr Coffey sees sense and not allow our club to be in the media as the bitter ones again.....

We have a choice , we either ask for dispensation or we infringe the Salary Cap

Then again the contract system in RL is wrong , we have players playing against teams they will be playing for next season and have a vested interest in

But your point does still stand , we cannot complain when the rules dont suit us and then ask for excemption when they do

OK - still 8 though, as I forgot Henderson, who was born in Torquay but, for some bizarre reason best known to the RFL, is a 'quota' player. That's why he had to leave Cas'.

Agree, we work with RFL to sort this out.....As long as we don't do a Widnes I don't care if we have advantage over the other clubs in our league. It happens in other sports too. In modern day professional sport there is no such thing as doing it "the right way".
Maybe RFL should get shut of salary cap for our competition, and just run it on a club being able to afford their squad type of system. I always thought salary cap was to help even out the comp, but it can make mockery if clubs that get relegated can spend more than rest. Also loosen up on the quota players too. So we don't have anymore whinging about it aimed at other clubs.
Developing area clubs need extra quota, in our area we shouldn't. So get rid of quota rule in our comp. No excuses and malice aimed at developing clubs etc then, and we can just get on with worrying about ourselves.
Championship Winners 2010!!! I refuse to believe we are going down.

Despite searching the RFL Operational Rules, (nothing to do, now the 'Haven programme is finished) I can't find anything about how many overseas' players Gateshead are allowed. I am certain though, that Toulouse were only allowed one, but that was later increased to five, when they said they already had that number signed up! They were told,however, that they were only allowed one, from 2010 onwards. Not that it's likely to affect us, (!) but I wonder how many they end up with, in 2010? Because, without their Aussies, they will struggle - although that doesn't matter, eh?

Curiously, whilst trawling the RFL Operational Rules, I came up with the following gem on overseas' player allowances:-

Super League = 5; Championship 1 = 1; Championship 2 = 2.

Given that the RFL had earlier defined tthe leagues as Championship, and Championship 1, I would have thought any 'Mr. Loophole' lawyer would have a field day, explaining that it was fine, for Leigh to have had any number of overseas' players this season! Visas permitting, of course!