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!

I would hope though that the clubs was not just asked to register online to these rules by clicking "Yes" that they understand the rules and abide by them.


Simple typing error. Now you mention it though, maybe what you found was correct and original announcement was typing error and "1" was missed off Championship and they just went with it to save face.

We dont ask for a single thing from the RFL. We should just knuckle down and get back up there without any help from those s. I dont want other clubs coming on here quoting that we had any special treatment from that lot. Smile and be nice to them.

We did that last season and we got fined 5 grand and made to look amatuerish.
If we don't work with RFL for the just in case situation we get fined again, and another black mark against us.

We have no choice as we have ' aledgedley ' already spent the Championship 1 salary cap on half a squad

Therefore if we did get relegated we would not have enough players to make up a team

Just get a load of 'amateurs' to play for nothing. It's all the rage, at 'some' clubs, apparently!

Toulouse shouldn't be playing in our league anyway I've said that all along. I don't agree with them playing in a British competition as it takes away from the French competition.

How will they ever develop their own league when their best teams and players keep coming over here? The other point would be that they should have started from the league below us like everyone else does.

Gateshead have umpteen Aussies playing in their team despite what it says on their passports. The RFL say they're a "development" club but they've been around for 10 years now in one form or another so it's absolutley pathetic.

Make the rules the same for everyone or stand to lose what little inegrity our sport still has.

Admittedly none of the above takes away from how poorly we've performed this season but these points are still relevant.

Alan,
Toulouse will be fielding young SL stars in the making from all over the UK and from Catalan next year to ensure they win that all important 'tick in the box'.
Have you forgot about the dual registration scheme

Ticking the box is only for british clubs , non british clubs do not have to ' tick ' anything

Surely what it says on their passports is all that matters?

Why should it!

I heard we would be looking into checking Gateshead aussies etdc are legal if we were to go down.
BTW anyone can tip off the uk border agency

Because I seriously doubt anyone at Gateshead has a fake passport. If they are 'Australian' but they have a legal EU passport, then that's all that matters.