Re: Rumours 2 : Mon Oct 21, 2019 2:49 pm
Lord Tony Smith wrote:
Goodwin and Tasi have left. Gelling has come in. One free quota space, haven't we?
It's a little more complicated than that. Assuming the rules haven't changed recently, you are allowed a total of 7 'overseas' players, spread between the below two categories.
- A maximum of 5 Of these are classified as 'Quota' players, and are players from Australia or NZ. (Austin, Goodwin, Clark, Mamo & Sita held these spots in 2019)
- Players from the likes of Tonga / Fiji / Samoa etc are classed as Non Fed Trained and you are allowed a maximum of 7 of these. (we had Tasi & BMM in 2019)
- In total from the above two categories you are allowed no more than 7 players, so if you have 2 'Quota' players you are allowed 5 'Non Fed' Players. If, as was our case in 2019 we had 5 'Quota' players, we were only allowed 2 'Non Fed'.
The club are presumably trying to reclassify Sita as Tongan by applying for a Tongan visa, he would then be
'Non Fed Trained' so freeing up a 'Quota' spot. Confusingly if we manage to get Austin a UK passport, which I think would be more difficult than Sita, he would still count on the quota, as his first exposure to professional RL was overseas.