French players to become Fed trained

[bowes]

As for Toulouse not been able to apply for a franchise spot, they can due to the league saying that any overseas club is welcome to apply for a licence regardless of them appearing in a final.

Apparently those rules date to before the RFL confirming that they would have to make a final, but who knows? Think they're more there for a potential big money Stade Francais bid, but who knows?

Also the RFL set the requirement of clubs making an average crowd of 2500 either 2009 or 2010, Toulouse got about 2300 last year and are much lower this year so they can't

[hindle xiii]

A few weeks ago there was a 'this is so obvious I can't believe it hasn't been done yet' moment, however I can't remember what it was, maybe a Heritage round...

Anyhoo, this is another one of those situations. We're a European Super League, yet Europeans can't play where they like without restrictions? Tis daft.

[TheObserver]

The Club/Fed/Overseas Trained rule (8/12/5) seems excessively restrictive to me. If this system were applied to the NRL, a number of clubs would fail it. Considering the overseas player limit, both Melbourne Storm and the Warriors have >5. The Warriors contained 11 overseas trained players at beginning of the season (10 Australians before Wade McKinnon transferred mid-season, Ukuma Ta'ai is a Tongan Rugby Union junior and RU international that moved to Auckland for university). Interestingly, the Roosters and Storm both have around 18 overseas players in their ranks (NRL/NSW Cup/NYC).

I'd also say that a host of NRL clubs' top 25 squads would not fulfil the Club Trained player rule - i.e. would have less than 8 players in the elite squad that came through the academy, or spent 3 years in those ranks.

The whole rationale behind the Overseas Trained rule is questionable. Contrary to popular belief, there appear to be significantly more overseas trained players in elite Australian clubs (NRL, NSW/QLD Cups, NYC Under 20s) than there are in elite English clubs (SL, Championships).