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

i would have thought that to have a full stadium they'd be better off playing them all on one day like a one day magic weekend.

A tournament would be better, how much interest are the players and fans gonna have if they can't win the overall titlte?

Am I interested in paying to go if my team aren't playing for the overall prize? no

selection should be a no brainer, both grand finalists and the team highest placed in the league that didn't make it to old trafford, none of this challenge cup winners business.

I suppose if it's a good money spinner though it make the "hubcap" more of a target.

The 3rd is not a silly variation on your proposal, your proposal was totally idiotic as the way you put it the 3rd place league team could well end up playing 2 games over 3 days or even more demanding a game on consecutive days.

With regards the other 2/3rds se you in court

The 3v3 and 2v2 games are basically glorified pre-season friendlies against NRL teams. I'd imagine there would still be a bit of interest over here, as fans would still like to see their team play an NRL side, whether it's for a trophy or not. I think the CC winners should get one of the places, it adds an extra incentive to it, same with the LLS.

I've said many times on here I'd love to see a full extended, 8 team tournament, and this may well be testing the waters for something like that in the future.

The problem there is that I think only 3 or 4 teams in SL could compete with NRL teams in a one off game. Get more teams upto the standard, then we can think about extending the competition.

This isn't a general criticism of the game over here or the RFL as I think we're going in the right direction with more English players playing in the NRL and our comp than we've had in the past....but I think it's the wrong time to do this, SL is actually further behind the NRL than it was a few years back, they have more money and more stars and we have far less stars, particularly the top Aussie players. They'll kill us in the halves and three-quarters and I don't see the likes of Wigan / Leeds / Saints getting near the top 3 NRL teams in the near future.

I wouldn't mind just 3 games played in one ground in one day or weekend. Best of 3 (like state of origin) Grand finalists and the other highest placed team of the regular league.

I remember the 'tournament' where teams from both hemispheres were thrown together. Seem to remember it was played partly in the UK and partly in OZ. I was only young at the time and can't remember the ins and outs but do remember that some of the UK teams got a right pasting.

Can anybody remember it from a different perspective?

Would it be worth having a look at something like this again?