Quote: Noel Cleal "I think calling it a pipe dream is a bit unfair. But it is hard to deny that there have been a lot of short cuts taken and little investment into the grass roots of developing nations for anything to improve.
I am a fan of an extended WCC, but as I said in my previous post Aussie self-interest will prevent this from happening. Maybe it could be introduced as an alternative to an international tournament. Having a world cup every 4 years leaves you with 3 tri-series tournaments between each World Cup, maybe a WCC in the 4 year cycle (maybe the year after the World Cup) would break things up.'"
WCC as a one-off tournament (even once a year) wouldn't get the extra media profile such an otherwise great idea is capable of. It needs to be like the Champions League in soccer, or the Heineken Cup with games throughout the season, to keep up season-long interest - it's all about building profile in a continuous way - as people start writing about this big international club games, suddenly they take an interest in the participants and start writing about domestic games around the same time. As I've said a lot, travel isn't as big a deal as people make out, because in groups of 4 (say), you have 6 fixtures, but only 2 of those are overseas - you can play your two overseas away games in one trip. It also helps solve one of the challenges of the domestic season - that is how to make the regular season more important. Qualification and favourable draws are the rewards for high finishes.
A one-off tournament isn't a terrible idea, but it wastes an opportunity. Say you have a big WCC game coming up - let's say Melbourne are over for both their two away games at say Wire and Saints. Both Wire and Saints would not only have the WCC games themselves but they'd have bigger gates for the preceding domestic games (and if they won or came close, the subsequent games). Also, media would start to take an interest in both those clubs in the weeks before the 'big' WCC games. Even with just 4 teams per group, we'd have 4 NRL clubs coming over at different times during the season, each playing 2 big games against domestic clubs. Spread nicely through the earlier part of the season it would greatly boost media interest.
Likewise, your club would have a scheduled trip to Aus, with two games to play - something that lucky fans might put on their once-in-a-lifetime agenda, especially if the clubs offered 'fly and stay with team' travel packages.
