World Club Challenge predictions

Quote: SmokeyTA "It needs to be every year. It just wouldn’t work otherwise. It needs the continuity. Every 5 years it is too easily forgotten about and we would spend for too much time, effort and money trying to regain the ground lost over the previous 5 years. It also loses some of its legitimacy as it doesn’t have that ‘lineal’ champion as those 8 teams are look pretty arbitrary when there were 4 years the same 8 didn’t play. If it is to be done with any real commitment it needs to be done every year and be our champions league.

With regards to internationals, I see no reason they cant be played straight after. It gives nice continuity in my opinion as well as a bit of an added storyline (imagine a few of the leeds players and Manly players going at it in the final, a week later They are lining up against each other as England and Australia players. Conversely (and it is much more likely with England) Say Wigan play Canterbury Graham and O’loughlin have a bit of a pop. A week Later they are lining up with each other)

With regards to player burn out which is always a consideration in these types of conversations, I think there is a good and easy answer to it. Clubs can play as many games as they want, it’s the players who get burnt out. So we limit the amount of games a player can play. If we have a 29 game regular season. Each player can play a maximum of 24 league games, and a total of 40 club games at most in a year including cups, play-offs and WCC. We would need a higher cap and bigger squads but more teams, playing more games and an added issue for the coaches to deal with as well as an added level of uncertainty in results.'"

I'd stick to the current format of a one-off game between SL champions and NRL champions in the interim years, alternating between the UK and Aus. I'd also like this moved to the end of the season so it is played with the actual title winning squads, and doesn't interfere with the regular season. An extended competition would be a much more special event if it was played every 5 years, annually would eventually kill the interest IMO. The next 10 years could look something like:

2014 – 4 Nations (Southern Hemisphere)
2015 – GB Tour Australia
2016 – NZ Tour GB
2017 – World Cup (SH)
2018 – 8 Team WCC (NH)
2019 – 4 Nations (NH)
2020 – GB Tour NZ
2021 – Australia Tour GB
2022 – World Cup (NH)
2023 – 8 Team WCC (SH)

Keeping the end of season tournaments fresh. The main issue is giving the teams not involved in the tours competitve games. It could be 2 4N per cycle rather than 2 tours to overcome this.

Not really sure how back-to-back competitions give continuity? If anything I'd say it's the opposite, as the international squad can't get together until a lot later and would go in to the competition under prepared. Having limits on how many games players can play is a complete non-starter. It's up to the coaching staff, doctors/physios and the players themselves to decide who is fit and when they can play, not some arbitrary rule that is is enforced by the governing body.