In today's Herald Kevin Ferrie writes that the chief executives of the three professional teams, SRU committee members, and Premier One Forum negotiators were assured by the SRU that clubs would lose no more than two players per match.
That was in May, but without any further discussion, the SRU has now advised that the figure might be more than doubled because of the nature of the apprentice contracts they have since issued to around 20 players.
An SRU spokesman said they had been advised by their lawyers that they could not restrict opportunities for those apprentice contract holders to play in pro team matches because of employment law. That may be so, but the SRU has also agreed a player reward scheme – effectively a transfer fee – for contracted players.
"If there is a desire from clubs for us to look at the player reward scheme as a consequence of this legal advice then we would be willing to do that," said the SRU spokesman.
That was insufficient to prevent an outraged reaction from Kenny Hamilton, secretary of the Premier One Forum.
"Back-tracking from (the initial) position without consultation and trying to impose conditions retrospectively is unacceptable," he said.
"This is either a case of mismanagement or people are being duplicitous and downright dishonest. If you can't trust what people are saying when you are sitting in the same room it is very worrying."
Regarding the legal advice, Hamilton argued: "That's a red herring. This is about what they wanted to do rather than what they had to do."