I'm not convinced about this idea at all at the moment and the benefit to the game as a whole. I hope I'm proven wrong. www.express.co.uk/sport/rugbylea ... s-go-ahead

I'm not convinced about this idea at all at the moment and the benefit to the game as a whole. I hope I'm proven wrong. www.express.co.uk/sport/rugbylea ... s-go-ahead

I like the idea! Gives teams another reason to try and have a high finish in the league! Good experience for the fringe players who can't make the England squad to get a high level game at a real hard place to go (If played in Australia). Also a positive would be the champions in each league would get to play with the same squad that won them the title and wouldn't disrupt the Super League like it possibly has done with Leeds!

Good idea but will need a fresh new name.

I really don't get the concept of it. What are they playing for exactly outside the top 2 teams? I hope it isn;t played in oz because I can't see NRL fans getting excited about seeing their team play in a meaningless friendly.

With the SL season kicking off earlier than NRL, NRL pre season games, all stars game and new NZ Nines when are they going to play it?

Surely the british based clubs are onto a hiding for nothing because of the massively differing salary caps and therefore the quality of players they can sign?

If its the first step on the road to an eventual "Champions League" ( i.e. big games running through the season for sustained media interest, not some end-of-season week or two which gets a bit of coverage then forgotten about ) then it's excellent news. It's also a step on the road to making the regular season finishing position more relevant. All good.

Oh joy! Just what we need - more fixtures in an already overlong and crowded season.

It's not extra rounds though, is it? It's two SL teams playing one extra game in line with another team that already is.

This idea is good but the timing is important. If it is to be a fair contest, and to be meaningful, it must be held at the end of the regular season. To be precise, it must be held two weeks after the respective grand finals (which need to be coordinated and held on the same weekend in their respective continents). Only then will it be considered an event that culminates the club seasons, a sort of "icing on the cake."

Holding it preseason is a kind of lowballing of the event. It is turning it into a kind of "taster" for the regular season, not a serious contest.

Moreover the teams are rarely the same in the new season so it is not a real reflection of each team's actual strength based on the previous season's results. Only end of season makes it a true reflection of the teams that placed 1-3.

End of season can be fitted into an international schedule. Let us say we coordinate the respective competitions' schedules so that the grand finals are on the last weekend in September. The World Series will then be on the second weekend in October, so as to give the teams time to recuperate, and to give one nations' teams time to arrive in the other country with more than a week to get over jet lag and acclimatise.

Then the internationals between nations can be started in the 3rd weekend of October and finish in mid November (in the case of the Four Nations) or at the end of November (in the case of the World Cup).

If we're going to bridge that gap, we need to bring in revenue. The easiest way to do that is to chance the most lucrative sponsorship and television deals and those, whether we like it or not, are to be found in Australia.

The Aussies wouldn't be interested if there wasn't something in it for them so if it does come off, it's because they consider it viable.

Good point. So scrap some fixtures by getting rid of the dross.

The Championship version against the French was poorly supported

Just saying like

Well said. Uncle MO would be pleased at this other folly.

But that was not comparable.

The Championship and French clubs competing had much much smaller fan bases than the SL and NRL clubs we are talking about (e.g. three out of Melbourne, South Sydney, Canterbury, Manly, Nth Queensland, Sydney Roosters, Brisbane vs three out of Leeds, Warrington, Huddersfield, Wigan, Bradford, Catalans, St Helens).

The Championship and French clubs competing had a much lower standard of rugby league than the SL and NRL clubs we are talking about.

So that example is irrelevant.

Much more important is getting the season time scheduling right, as I have written about in my post above.

But similarily they were all apart from 1 , completely meaningless matches , that is the potential problem , generally RL fans dont watch meaningless matches