Steve Mascord has reported that Brisbane and South Sydney have requested the right to play in an expanded World Club Challenge in England next year, as NRL clubs 2 and 3, if they don't win the NRL Grand Final, regardless of how they perform on the NRL table during the coming season.

I thought that the idea was supposed to be the top three from each competition, and that any club wanting to play would have to be in one of the three top places in their own competition. South Sydney have a good chance to be in the top three, but Brisbane are not showing such form as yet.

Brisbane and South Sydney also want to play each other in an exhibition match in London prior to the WCC. Another proposal is that the NRL Grand Final winner will play against Catalans in Perpignan in the weekend before the WCC. Those proposals sound interesting to me.

The WCC expanded format is expected to be three games, played on a Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday. The main game, between the NRL and ESL winners would be on the Sunday. Nobody is contesting that the main game will be between the winners of each competition. This issue raised is which clubs will play in the other two matches.

The main question is: should the NRL be allowed to choose volunteers, rather than the number two and three performers, decided at season's end, in an expanded WCC?

Would you attend games 2 and 3 if non-top 3 NRL clubs were picked for the second and third placed games?

I hate the idea of this 3v3, 2v2, 1v1 system. What exactly does it acheive? It either needs to be a one-off game between the 2 champions or a full tournament involving the top 4 from each league. This proposal seems like a pointless middle ground. It really needs to be contested at the end of the season, rather than the beginning of the following season, also.

I agree, and I'd be seriously willing to stump up the cash and fly out Australia to see that - whether Leeds are in it or not.

Unfortunately, the RFL has decided that I should have to sit through seven weeks of watching lower-end Super League clubs batter a select group of championship clubs in front of 4,000 people in some daft "SL2" scenario.

A full 8 team, 6 week tournament every 4/5 years would be massive IMO.

We need to play to our strengths, and for the forseeable future our club game is much stronger than our international scene. The NRL is very insular and we really need to tap in to it. A European 6 nations event isn't going to raise our profile, and neither will the international competitions with only 3 competitive teams, but an extended WCC just might. That's why I'd look at working on a 5 year cycle with regards to the October/November competition, with 4 years of international tournaments (4N/WC/GB Tours) and the 5th year being an 8 team WCC.

Yes. Those teams will still be significantly better than any SL team we watch. Ridiculous question. Would I prefer to watch Bridbane Broncos or Wakefield play my team? That sums up your daftness.

That wasn't the question I asked.

The fact that you could not understand the question sums up your daftness.

Its all a question of marketing. I didnt like the series idea at first.

But if you treat the 3 games as the SL v NRL challenge, one point for each game, and the final match also as a standalone cup then it could work nicely.

Either consecutive nights or as a triple header.

In fact start friday 3v3
saturday nines comp in the day 2v2 at night
Sunday nines finals 1v1 at night

Could be a better magic weekend.

On the SL side I would prefer Grand final winners, Hub cap and challenge cup winners selected then down on finishing position in the league.

If the aussies dont want to play ball for now the NRL winners plus invitees would still work - if it takes off we wont have a problem in future years.

And the friendlies in london and france the week before make sense too.

You can't have a WCC challenge that goes on for 5/6 weeks.

Clubs would have to make up several fixtures when they returned to SL action and it would leave the other teams sat around twiddling their thumbs. You can't reduce the number of SL fixtures to combat this as the clubs not involved with that are just going to suffer from less income from hosting 2/3 less home games a year and that's not exactly going to help those near the bottom who are already financially struggling.

Also it would require the Aussies to get on board. Now they might be up for a one off game plus a friendly the week before, but I can't see them going for anything longer or at a different time of the year (they see it as good preparation for the new season) and if the Aussies don't agree to it then I can't see it getting the go ahead.

It would have to be at the end of the season in place of the 4 Nations. The bottom line is any expanded WCC could not interfere with the regular season, especially the NRL as they would never go for it. The WCC as it is already interferes with one SL team's season, anymore would cause too much disruption, this is why I think including SL sides in to the Auckland 9's is also a non-starter (unless it's used as a WCC warm-up for a SL team already out there).

Ideally I'd like to see a SL Champions V NRL Champions WCC played every year, 2 weeks after each Grand Final, alternating hemispheres. Then every 5 years play an expanded WCC featuring the top 4 from each league.

I don't see how a expanded WCC could work because you have got to get an ESL v NRL final and how do you create that without making some kind of farcical round robin, but we have done it before so I guess we could do it again.

I was going to start a new thread about this and other idea's on RL policy but screw it, ill put it here were it will probably get lost in a thread that will turn into tit for tat personal spats.

Here goes....

All new season Round 1 matches start on Boxing Day, all Round 2 matches start on New years day.
We got to cash in on the biggest bank holidays of the year, if sky want to show 2 matches then one match played at noon and the other at 3pm or later.
Plus we will have to start the season 6 weeks earlier for my other idea of using the natural break in the new split season format for bringing back the big tours in the months of June and July.

Top eight from ESL tour Australia every 2 years to play in an expanded WCC or a WCC match and a 9's tournament involving all the NRL clubs spread over two weekends ( first week being group matches were the two WCC teams get a bye and week two being a straight knock-out) with a Lions Tour Combo , a 3 match test series with Australia in first tour and a 3 match test series with New Zealand the next, the reverse happening every other year with NRL clubs touring here with a New Zealand or Australia 3 match series , and that could open up the possibility of having a State of Origin match at Wembley every two years.
Every 5 years a world cup instead of WCC and tour combo.

During the 6 week break the SL2 comp can start with sky making a bigger deal covering it and that comp will finish earlier giving those teams a longer off season to prepare.
You don't need any end of season Internationals so you get a proper off season.

The remaining SL clubs could play in another tournament involving a group stage of four games (two home/two away) which count on your season ticket. The knockout stages of the 'Super League Cup' could either be completed entirely without the participation of the WCC teams or they could join in at that stage (having earned the right by finishing in the top four). Another cup to win. Obviously you would need to reduce the number of regular season SL games to accomodate.



I suppose the Aussies could do something similar with a new tournament of their own. But yeah, you're right, that would require a level of co-ordiantion and co-operation which seems unlikely.

Yep, commerce has to trump sport every time.

How about the League Winners playing, you guessed it the League Winners?
You could even have it as a second completely different competition!

Not for commerce reasons but for credibility reasons, what's the point of having two NRL clubs in the WCC Final when you already have the NRL Grand Final.