IT looks like the Big Willie Mason saga is rumbling on with the former Kangaroo now linked with a move from Hull KR to French rugby union.

After all the fuss involved with him trying to acquire a Tongan passport, the wait, and subsequent de-registration of injured scrum half Michael Dobson you just wonder whether it has been worth it.

The once fearsome packman - who infamously flattened Stuart Fielden in the Tri Nations clash - has hardly been ripping it up in Super League since he arrived in England.

But it is less his performances that bother me. No, it is the way that clubs now exploit loopholes within the quota system to get overseas players on board.

Clearly there are agreements in place – the KOLPAK and The Cotonou Agreement – that our game has to respect when recruiting players, but can the chairmen of Super League not come to a gentleman’s agreement for the good of the British game?

The basis of that gentleman’s agreement would be that no Super League team will sign no more than five non-European federation trained players - without exception.

Imports have been good for British rugby league – and nobody can take away the great memories that the likes of Mal Meninga, Jamie Lyon, David Fairleigh and Kevin Iro have left in St Helens.

But there are so many teams currently exploiting the loopholes that it makes the system hard to understand. In playing terms, it also puts pressure on clubs, who want to do the right thing by growing their own.

In fact, if unchecked some clubs may just get a taste of it and go actively seeking NRL Samoan passport holders to get them signed up as Kolpaks, which would really make such a complete mockery of the whole system.

Although Hull KR have had a bit of flak for the make up of their side, some bigger clubs have more than five, one way or another.

There are no doubt a range of excuses, alibis and explanations for the additional overseas players but at the moment the three teams that have collected all the silverware in the past two seasons legitimately have more than five non-British players on board.

This season Warrington’s ranks Brett Hodgson, Matt King, Joel Monaghan, Michael Monaghan, Louis Anderson and David Solomona.

Wigan’s roster includes George Carmont, Pat Richards, Thomas Leuluai, Jeff Lima, Ryan Hoffman, Brett Finch and Amos Roberts, although in mitigation they do actually bring through a lot of Wigan kids too.

And Leeds’ foreign leagion features Brent Webb, Brett Delaney, Kylie Leuluai, Danny Buderus, Ali Lauitiiti, Ben Cross and Weller Hauraki.

If rigidly limiting the quota sounds too negative, why not introduce a positive pairing system.

Why not say to clubs - in a form of trade off - that every imported player include in your 17-man match day squad has to be paired with a player born, bred and nurtured in the town that gives the team its name.

That would reward the clubs that are doing the right thing for the future of the game by investing in their own town’s youth.