HENLEY Hawks say they have been caught out by their own honesty after being slapped with a £1,000 fine by the Rugby Football Union (RFU).

The National League 2 South club were found guilty of engaging the services of an unregistered agent at an independent competitions hearing.

It relates to the signings of front-row forward Barnaby Abdale-Weir and half-back James Stevenson-Wright, who have been issued with reprimands for appointing an individual from Inside Running Recruitment.

The New Zealand-based company do not have any agents on the RFU’s registered list for the 2016/17 season, while Hawks have been fined for not checking.

Henley were caught out when completing the appropriate forms regarding an agent’s involvement in the transaction of a player.

Director of rugby Nigel Dudding said: “We have been caught by our honesty and it’s something we want to bury now and get on with.

“We’ve come a cropper, we’ve accepted our checking process was not what it should have been.

“The only thing we’ve done is be unfortunate enough to fill in a form and that threw up that they were not registered.

“I’d rather be honest rather than later down the road it is discovered and who knows what would have happened.”

Hawks accepted the sanctions and in a letter written by their director of rugby administration Aubrey Doran insisted the club at no point “deliberately sought to avoid compliance” with the regulations.

It continued: “On this occasion we should have been more aware of the arrangements surrounding the use of agents, clearly we have been naive in this case in assuming that Inside Running had appropriately approved RFU Accredited Agents.”

Abdale-Weir and Stevenson-Wright, who signed in September and August 2016 respectively, accepted their reprimands and explained they were “unaware” of the regulations and “did not receive advice from Inside Running”.

The hearing, chaired by Jeremy Summers, concluded the “club’s failings, whilst not intentional, were serious”.

Dudding said Hawks have used Inside Running Recruitment in the past and according to the RFU’s Registered Agents List the company’s last representative’s license expired in October 2015.

He said: “They were not registered for this season in this country.

“I would really like to know the number of players they have placed in this country when they don’t have any bona fide agents.”

Hawks have also been handed a ten-point deduction, suspended until the conclusion of the 2017/18 season, which will be activated if the club breach RFU Regulation 8 again.

But Dudding said the £1,000 fine, £500 per player, comes at a time when the club is attempting to raise funds for the second phase of their redevelopment of the changing rooms and physio centre.

He said: “It’s certainly not something we have taken lightly and comes at a time where funding is desperate.

“That amount of money is not to be sniffed at and something we have got to make up through fundraising.”

The Oxford Mail attempted to contact Inside Running Recruitment, but did not receive a reply.