Before the semifinal the Havelock North club had been advised by the union "they would risk a protest and likely lose it" if they played the pair.
"We could have protested after the game but we did not want to be accused of being poor losers and sour grapes as we were beaten on the field and protesting after the fact. Had we known we might well have let them play as they were long standing and recognised team members rather than some ring ins," Sowman said at the time.
"We did not officially know who the players were and the Hawke's Bay union would not confirm who they were. As a club we don't make frivolous protests without the full facts. We believed that as the union had signalled to all clubs the consequences of playing unregistered players and had surveyed clubs to ascertain who was ineligible and then spoken with the clubs reiterating the consequences should they break the rules, that they would deal with any breaches and sanctions would be applied according to those rules," Sowman added.
Later in August the union apologised to other Maddison Trophy participants and in particular to the Hastings club for not enforcing rule 7c.
Bishop said yesterday he and fellow union officials had met with representatives of the Havelock club recently.
"We had a full and frank discussion about the whole sequence of events and both parties acknowledge that mistakes were made and that there were things that both parties could have done better. I suppose the best thing to come out of this is that representatives of the union have met with representatives of all the region's clubs to not only stress the importance of player registration, but streamline and simplify the process and timing of registering players.
"We think that this will be of great benefit in managing teams from the clubs perspective and from an administration perspective for the union," Bishop said.
"Both parties agreed that rugby should be played on the paddock, not through legalistic challenges to the application of rules of administration. The simplification of those administrative rules will go a long way to ensuring this occurs in 2016 and beyond," Bishop added.
Havelock North club spokesman Dai Evans was relieved his club and the union had resolved their differences.
"Rugby clubs are administered by volunteers who at times will make mistakes and errors of judgment ... The union accepted that was the position and not an attempt to stack a team with ring-in players for the semifinal."
Both parties also agreed no further comment or statement would be made.
