seen on boots n all tonight that the world club challenge will more than likely to be expanded to 3 teams next season

fantastic news

whats not fantastic is hetherington saying that clubs will be chosen alongside the GF winners to represent the superleague!

looks like glamour will over rule effort! unless gate money is shared between all SL clubs, the same clubs will be chosen each year, no need to guess who they will be


surely it will be the two grand finalists and the next highest placed team in the league who deserve to play in the WCC

Think he said the "qualification" hasn't been decided. The league leaders shield HAVE to qualify. Can't have a team manually selected. Good stuff we're expanding the WCC.

The only thing that concerns me is selling the 3rd V 3rd team and convincing the Aussies to bring their star players half the world for it. Maybe they could be a financial reward? The million pound matches

Was just going to say the same, makes it a lot more interesting, but it should be the 2 teams in the GF and then the highest placed team outside those 2 in the league, or even the winner/loser of the CC?

What I'd do is:

Qualifying Semi Final 1 -
SL League Leader v NRL Minor Premier (or next highest placed clubs)

Qualifying Semi Final 2 -
Challenge Cup winners v NRL beaten Grand Finalists

Elimination Semi Final 1 -
NRL Grand Final winner v winner of QSF 1

Elimination Semi Final 2 -
SL Grand Final winner v winner of QSF 2

Final -
Winner of ESF 1 v winner of ESF 2

Was it said when it would be played?
End of year or prior to the start of the next season?

I look forward to watching Manly v Roosters for the WCC then.

it should be:-

SL: 1 League Leaders Shield (hubcap) winners
2 Challenge Cup Winners
3 Grand Final Winners

NRL: 1 Grand Final Winners
2 Minor Premiers
3 Either (Grand Final Runners up) OR (Minor Premier Runners up)

The 6 teams should then be drawn from a hat and placed in 2 groups or 3. each team plays the other 2 teams in their group ONCE. The top of each group progress to the final.

Could play the 4 group games over 1 week and the final the week later.

i can't see the aussies buying into a knockout comp. right now TBH, but suspect the 3 games will probably played over one weekend (friday/saturday/sunday) with the final game being GF winner vs GF winner for the actual WCC trophy.the other 2 games, however they ar configured, will be for revenue only as im sure the crowds will be good.

Where are all these extra game people are suggesting going to go in the season?

I agree, an actual tournament would be better than a one off game, but that's never going to happen until they reduce the season (which isn't going to happen any time soon).

Let's not kid ourselves though, this isn't an expanded WCC at all.

I agree that selection of teams should be merit based, but also the games should be held at a time such that Australian TV will show it for a fee and many Australians and Kiwis will watch:

Friday 8.30 pm: 3rd placed NRL vs 3rd placed SL (Sydney 5.30 am)

Saturday 2 pm: NRL GF loser vs SL GF loser (Sydney 11 pm)

Sunday 2 pm: NRL GF winner vs SL GF winner (Sydney 11 pm)

Let's not kid ourselves, lots of fans are saying that the new proposed league format of 2 x 12 to 3 x 8 to decide promotion to SL is heavily in favour of the 12 SL clubs as they have £1.8m salary compared to a max of at best approx. £1.0m for the very top Champ clubs.......Most think the Champ clubs wont have a chance....

So What chance will the SL clubs in the WCC have when the Aussies have $6.55m AUD to spend (£3.6m) double the salary cap to spend on the worlds best players. The divide is even greater than SL to Championship, recent results from the WCC show that the more you have to spend on better players means you are more likely to win it.

I paid and went to watch Wigan in Aus this year against Sydney, I wouldn't bother if they were only playing an "also rans" match whereby they had no chance of competing for WCC 2nd v 2nd or 3rd v 3rd means absolute sod all, how many would go to watch the 2 losing semi finalists from this weekends Challenge Cup playing each other on the Friday night at Wembley before the 2 other teams turn out on Saturday to try and win the cup

The 3 teams format should be as follows:-

ESL GF Winners v NRL GF Winners
ESL GF Runners Up v NRL GF Runners Up
ESL League Leaders v NRL League Leaders*

*Or highest ranked team league placed team not contesting the GF