Overseas Players

[haskey]

It is becoming more & more obvious that players from Australasia are . on the whole, a risky business recruiting them in this demanding finance climate for our Super League clubs. A large proportion are signed on large contracts on watching clips on NRL matches before they are surplus to requirements by their NRL clubs and offered to Super League clubs. which should rings bells as to WHY. They may not like the weather , get homesick and are not up to the grade expected. Folua(Hull) springs to mind . Some even break their contracts and not return for pre season training.

A maximum should be brought in. but it is not in my remit to say how many , but I do believe it is absolutely necessary for the health of our game. 

[Dunbar]

10 minutes ago, haskey said:

A maximum should be brought in. but it is not in my remit to say how many , but I do believe it is absolutely necessary for the health of our game. 

Something like this perhaps.

https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/2019-operational-rules-tiers-1-3/mobile/index.html#p=107

[Dallas Mead]

[Mr Frisky]

1 hour ago, haskey said:

It is becoming more & more obvious that players from Australasia are . on the whole, a risky business recruiting them in this demanding finance climate for our Super League clubs. A large proportion are signed on large contracts on watching clips on NRL matches before they are surplus to requirements by their NRL clubs and offered to Super League clubs. which should rings bells as to WHY. They may not like the weather , get homesick and are not up to the grade expected. Folua(Hull) springs to mind . Some even break their contracts and not return for pre season training.

A maximum should be brought in. but it is not in my remit to say how many , but I do believe it is absolutely necessary for the health of our game. 

FIrst time on a RL forum mate?? You do know there are rules in place don't you?

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

What are the current limits on overseas, quota, non eu, Kolpac, non federation trained, federation trained and club trained players?

[haskey]

Good spot Dunbar. Ok I will say though that 5 is far too many.

[Just Browny]

I think 5 is fine. Ultimately it's the club's risk to take - if such and such an import turns out to be a dud, so be it.

I think there is something in your argument that the players we can attract are increasingly average or a gamble - but look at Jackson Hastings or Rob Lui for gambles that have paid off royally and really added to our league and the spectacle. While Catalans have relied on their Aussie contingent, some other top teams have made their overseas players less crucial to their side - e.g. Naiqama and Coote add a lot to Saints, but Roby, Walmsley and Lomax determine success or failure - so there are examples of clubs recognising those risks.

[whatmichaelsays]

Honestly, who the clubs recruit is up to them. No new signing or hire is risk-free - if the extent of a club's due diligence is "watching a few clips online", then that's their issue. 

Homesickness is a thing. Mental health is a thing. Most of us think we won't be affected by these, but it happens.

There are reasons for having a quota system (supporting local talent, supporting the England team, etc) and there are perfectly good reasons to not have one (allow clubs to recruit the best talent that they can afford irrespective of a player's origin). But "some might not be very good and get homesick" is not a reason to have a tighter quota. 

[Magic Superbeetle]

13 hours ago, Sir Kevin Sinfield said:

What are the current limits on overseas, quota, non eu, Kolpac, non federation trained, federation trained and club trained players?

So the “quota” that was linked in the rules was deprecated as I think there were concerns that it wouldn’t hold up to legal challenge. It is, after all, illegal to discriminate somebody from a job on the grounds of their nationality. There’s no reference in the 2019 operational rules which were the last ones published that I can see (https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/2019-operational-rules-tiers-1-3/mobile/index.html#p=44)

Instead, non-federation trained rules were brought into place. The idea being that if a player under the age of 21 spends 3 years in an academy* run by a member of RLEF, they gain a “qualification”, and clubs can sign up to 7 players without said qualification. This captures all the kolpak loopholes/ European passport loopholes also, so is more consistent.

*there are other ways for the RFL to grant qualification, either for players who take unusual routes to professional sport, like Alex Walmsley, who came through the community game, or people they just want playing in the competition (like Gareth Widdop). There are also means for the RFL to grant “temporary” qualifications, mostly when clubs go bust and puts players are risk, because whilst the non fed rules are better than the old quota, it’s still no where near water tight legally so it’s a round about way of keeping everyone happy. Usually the temporary qualifications last for the time the player spends at their next club.

I think most clubs run with 7 as a reasonable number. It’s not as simple as just cutting the number down to say 3, as all that would achieve is inflating the price of quality federation trained players and lower quality of squads as more junior players will be needed to fill the gaps, who wouldn’t have otherwise been considered good enough.

Instead it would be much more effective to make the clubs have a minimum spend on their academy squad relative to their Salary cap spend (spend the max on the salary cap should come with conditions of serious investment in youth). Then teams would be less dependent on non federation players and we could bring the number down because they’re not needed.

My club, Saints, will be running with the full 7 next year, and each add something to the squad overall. Will Hopoate, Sione Mata’utia, Curtis Sironen, Joey Lussick, Iggy Paasi, Jamie Bell, Konrad Hurrell

[Sir Kevin Sinfield]

16 minutes ago, Magic Superbeetle said:

So the “quota” that was linked in the rules was deprecated as I think there were concerns that it wouldn’t hold up to legal challenge. It is, after all, illegal to discriminate somebody from a job on the grounds of their nationality. There’s no reference in the 2019 operational rules which were the last ones published that I can see (https://www.rugby-league.com/flipbooks/2019-operational-rules-tiers-1-3/mobile/index.html#p=44)

Instead, non-federation trained rules were brought into place. The idea being that if a player under the age of 21 spends 3 years in an academy* run by a member of RLEF, they gain a “qualification”, and clubs can sign up to 7 players without said qualification. This captures all the kolpak loopholes/ European passport loopholes also, so is more consistent.

*there are other ways for the RFL to grant qualification, either for players who take unusual routes to professional sport, like Alex Walmsley, who came through the community game, or people they just want playing in the competition (like Gareth Widdop). There are also means for the RFL to grant “temporary” qualifications, mostly when clubs go bust and puts players are risk, because whilst the non fed rules are better than the old quota, it’s still no where near water tight legally so it’s a round about way of keeping everyone happy. Usually the temporary qualifications last for the time the player spends at their next club.

I think most clubs run with 7 as a reasonable number. It’s not as simple as just cutting the number down to say 3, as all that would achieve is inflating the price of quality federation trained players and lower quality of squads as more junior players will be needed to fill the gaps, who wouldn’t have otherwise been considered good enough.

Instead it would be much more effective to make the clubs have a minimum spend on their academy squad relative to their Salary cap spend (spend the max on the salary cap should come with conditions of serious investment in youth). Then teams would be less dependent on non federation players and we could bring the number down because they’re not needed.

My club, Saints, will be running with the full 7 next year, and each add something to the squad overall. Will Hopoate, Sione Mata’utia, Curtis Sironen, Joey Lussick, Iggy Paasi, Jamie Bell, Konrad Hurrell

Thanks, great post. I think 7 is a good number, if the number was to change I’d say go to 8 or 9, which would be a maximum of half the 17/18 man squad . I don’t understand why some want to cut the number of overseas players and what they think it will achieve, all it would do is reduce the playing standard across of Super League.