So we have a fairly structured path as to who’s in it, whereas the Aussies have the Bunnies with a couple more thrown in

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They may as well have chucked the Sharkies in there, as we all know our top clubs can compete in the higher echelons of the NRL

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Easy to work out



Any Top 3 clubs from SL.

Unless it's anyone outside of Wigan, Leeds, St Helens and Warrington. In which case, the bespoke qualification criteria shall be moulded to perfection.

Are you with me so far?

Good.

Any 3 clubs from the NRL who can be d.

Luckily, the current champions Souths can be d.

Canterbury cannot be d.

Nor can the Roosters. Nor Manly. Nor Penrith. Nor Melbourne. Nor Cowboys. Nor NZ Warriors. Nor Parramatta. Nor Newcastle. Nor Gold Coast. Nor Balmain/Wests. Nor Canberra.

8th placed Brisbane clearly fancy a pre-season Kon-Tiki Tour. As do the 11th placed St George.

I hear that Cronulla were gutted to miss out.

As were Northern Pride!

The winner of the game involving South Sydney are WCC winners. The format is the WCC (champions v champions) plus two friendlies. There may or may not be a further trophy for the competition that has the most winning teams out of the three matches for bragging rights but only the winner of the game involving Souths can be world club champions.

Apparently this isn't going to be the case. Even if Wigan lose the Grand Final then they are still playing on the Sunday, due to their landlord informing them that Championship side Wigan Athletic are at home on the Saturday.

The selecion criteria seems a bit of a farce, doesn't it?

Saying that, I'm still going to try get to the games, despite me being a Yorkshireman and "not being bothered".

All three of their clubs have some decent players that I don't get to the chance to see live very often.
Souths: Inglis, Luke, the Burgess twins - then ones I've never seen play like Walker, Reynolds, Johnstone.
Dragons: Widdop, Marshall, Dugan, Merrin, Nightingale, Morris.
Brisbane: Thaiday, Barba, Hodges, Parker, Gillette, Reed.

Ok, maybe not all of those players will play. Got to be better than watching some of the jokers running around at Wakefield/Widnes/Rovers.

The Brisbane vs St Helens game should be outstanding, especially if Luke Walsh is fit to play. Brisbane should win easily, but I expect St. Helens to put up a fight for 60 minutes before their fitness fails them. It will be interesting to see Darius Boyd back in Brisbane colors, along with whichever famous full back the maestro Wayne Bennett decides to play at five eighth.

St. George-Illawarra vs Warrington will be interesting because Gareth Widdop will be keen to impress the local fans, as will Michael Cooper. Benji Marshall will be out to prove that his omission from the Kiwi test team was a mistake.

Of course the Wigan vs South Sydney contest will be the big disappointment, because Wigan will have no answer to the Burgess brothers, Isaac Luke, Adam Reynolds, and especially Gregory Inglis. The likely presence of Russell Crowe at the game would have been one of many good reasons to hold the match at Wembley, but unfortunately Nigel Wood is too blinkered and risk averse to have even thought of that.

The winner comes from the clash of the two Grand Finalists, obviously!

The other two games are an early attempt to expand the concept into something that will mimic the Champions League at some time in the future. If the SL representatives in games 2 & 3 fall flat and get mullered then the idea will be stangled at birth much like the original expanded series in the mid 90s

Oh so true!

I think that William Eve v Jean Capdouze should feature as a warm-up. See who can prove to be the most cynical, pessimistic, glass-half-empty bore of them all.

Given the St. Helens win over a 12 man Wigan side, and given Nathan Brown's departure as coach, and given the departure of Iosia Soliola as player, the South Sydney vs St Helens match is likely to turn into a fiasco. St Helens cannot possibly compete with the power of South Sydney. I fear a more one sided WCC than when Sydney Roosters thrashed St Helens 38-0 in 2003 (a match held in bitterly cold weather which I unfortunately attended).

Don't you have a BBC website to go and obsessively monitor for it's glass half-empty RL coverage?

The Brisbane vs Wigan match is going to be the match of the weekend, given the likely thrashing of St Helens by South Sydney. I expect a few fisticuffs early, and a bitter forward battle, before Brisbane runs riot in the final 20 minutes.