Slightly off-topic, but in my research on why the Knights failed I came across the fact that they had fifteen import players in their first season. Was there no import quota in 2005-7? Or were the Knights just exempt?
I was under the impression it had always been a max of 5 visa players in the squad of 23-26.
I see that the source I quoted was counting Aussie players as imports, but still, the initial Knights squad featured 8 visa players
Edit: Looking at this, the time lines don't really match up for IR deals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005%E2%80%9306_New_Zealand_Knights_FC_season Might be one for the Bloc 5 hardcores to answer