The Rugby Football League's well-intentioned plan to reduce the number of overseas players in the top-flight has descended into farce.

In a bid to promote home-grown talent, the RFL have introduced a new rule restricting clubs to only eight non-federation trained players – effectively ones who have not come through a British club's junior system – from next season.

The clampdown is designed to limit the number of players brought in from overseas, who in the past haven't counted on the import quota – for example, foreign-born players with a British passport or Kolpak players from developing rugby league nations, such as the South Sea Islands.

A separate quota of five overseas players, who don't meet any of the above exemptions, still applies.

Unfortunately, the non-federation rule is proving almost impossible to apply and has thrown up a series of anomalies, which have already forced the RFL into a confusing and poorly-timed U-turn.

For example, English-born players – like Leeds Rhinos' Simon Worrall and Castleford Tigers' Kirk Dixon – faced being included on what is effectively an import quota, because they have come into the game from rugby union, rather than through a club's Academy system.

That's clearly ludicrous. The RFL should be encouraging good quality players into the game, not putting barriers in their way.

Sensibly, both players – in Worrall's case after the threat of legal action – have been granted special dispensation to qualify as federation or club-trained.

Obviously, having been classed as non-federation – and therefore competing for quota spots alongside Aussie and Kiwi imports – would have severely restricted their chances of earning a contract extension at their current club or earning a deal somewhere else.

Players like the Henderson brothers – Castleford's Andy and Wakefield's Kevin – also faced being classed as non-federation trained, despite having been born in this country, because they grew up in Australia and played their first rugby there.

Harlequins' French forward Julien Rinaldi and Papua New Guinea veteran Stanley Gene, who has played in this country for more than a decade and is out of contract at Hull KR this autumn, were in the same boat.

The RFL last week relaxed the rule, giving clubs dispensation to "renew or extend the contracts of any 'non-federation players' over and above the current limit which applies, providing those players were under contract with them prior to introduction of the club-trained player rules in June 2007".

In other words, clubs can keep the likes of the Hendersons, Rinaldi or Gene, on top of the eight non-federation players allowed under the new quota.

The dispensation will expire if said players switch clubs or at the end of any contract extension.

The climb-down has come ridiculously late in the day. Rinaldi, for example, has already been released by Quins.