Hull KR chairman Neil Hudgell has taken part of the blame for the ongoing saga surrounding Willie Mason.
Rovers chairman holds hands up over 'gamble'
Hull KR chairman Neil Hudgell has taken part of the blame for the ongoing saga surrounding Willie Mason.
Talking after Good Friday's 36-18 Hull derby defeat, Hudgell admitted mistakes had been made during the process of signing the former Australia forward.
Rovers announced Mason's signing last September amid a wave of publicity, but he did not arrive in England until March owing to visa and passport delays.
The club were led to believe Mason was entitled to a Tongan passport - meaning he would not have to go on their already full overseas quota - and signed him on that proviso.
The passport had not arrived by the time Mason did, so he took the place of the injured Michael Dobson on the quota, only to be replaced by the scrum-half when he regained fitness on Thursday.
The club say a change in the Tongan government has caused the ongoing delay, but are planning to speak to Mason and his agent anyway after he visited France last Wednesday, where he was spotted meeting the owner of rugby union side Toulon.
"We haven't spoken to him yet and plans are in place to do so in the next couple of days," Hudgell said. "We have had no contact at all from Toulon.
"There are a number of options with Willie. If we get the whole thing on the table, the club has taken a lot of gambles to get where we are.
Circus
"When we signed Willie we needed to know he would get a passport. It hasn't happened and we take the rap for that. As chairman, I have to hold my hands up.
"I didn't even know about an alleged connection with a French rugby union club. Who knows what's around the corner with the Willie Mason circus?
"If it's true and he was in France a week ago on a day off it's clearly an issue. We intend to speak to Willie and his agent.
"I'm not going to try and mitigate as we took a gamble and it's not worked out. We had clear and unequivocal evidence from the Prime Minister of Tonga that he would get a passport."
The chain of events has caused a number of pundits to point accusing fingers at both Hull KR and the Rugby Football League for allowing it to happen, but Hudgell insisted that other clubs had also received dispensation to cut through red tape.
He added: "Let's be frank about it. Dispensations go on left, right and centre and I can say that just one club has made any comment about what's happened and that's because most clubs get dispensation about something.
"If you ring around the Super League clubs and ask them a view, at some time or another they've had a little bit of help cutting through red tape. The reality is, it was our call to do a deal when we didn't know if we were going to get a passport."
