Of course, in an ideal world, you would have a World Cup every four years.

In reality, the only way international Rugby League will really begin to reach the level it ought to be at, is to have a Rugby League World Cup every two years as the basis for the development of the game internationally.

The RL World Cup in the Southern Hemisphere in 2017 should be followed by another in the Northern Hemisphere in 2019, back down under in 2021 and so on. Two immediate benefits would be improved attraction and retention of players and a burgeoning international game in development countries as they see the attraction of various global qualifying competitions in the intervening years.

I've seen allsorts of clever proposed international calendars covering 4, 6 or 8 years involving old style tours etc. But we have to accept that they are not going to happen. Organising and running a World Cup is hard work but surely the game's administrators here and down under are up to taking their own turn every four years.

Once biennial World Cups have been in place for a generation, then a sensible debate could be had about whether it would be right to scale back to every three or four years.

I don't buy the argument about not wanting to clash with other major events - soccer world cup, Olympics etc. That's not really a valid reason not to go ahead. The game has to have confidence in it's own attractiveness. If Fiji v Ireland on a cold, wet November night in 2013 can be sold out, anything is possible. Familiarity does not breed contempt - I've lost count of the number of England v Australia cricket Ashes series in the last 10 years with no detriment.

The club chairmen should push for it; a stronger more visible ongoing international game would have positive impact on club competitions (including the world club series).

What do you gain from this that you wouldn't gain from having a well-promoted 3 match test series against the Aussies or the Kiwis and keeping the world cup every 4 years?

You will see a reduction in crowds at the World Cups if they're played every 2 years.

World Cup should be 4 years. With tours and other competitions filling in the other 3.

As we only have 2 places that can stage a World Cup, England & Australia, we can't have a World Cup every 2 years.

It would at least put an end to the current farce over eligibility, given players have to leave at least a two year gap between playing for one nation and then the other.

Crazy idea.

The only way to build up the game internationally is to build more competitive nations, which means giving some of them which have a player base the chance for professional club competition within the NRL and Super League.

The NRL are working towards that with the gradual blooding of PNG Hunters and Fiji in the Queensland Cup and NSW Cup respectively.

The RFL are doing much less of that, by belatedly allowing Toulouse to join the 3rd non-professional division, and forcing them to fight their way into Super League via promotion under circumstances of a very biased salary cap.

After 2017 there will be a major international tournament (bigger than Four Nations) every two years between World Cups, but it won't be a World Cup and that's a stupid thing to even suggest.

As some of you may know I agree with R Crowe that we should bin international RL, and have a club WC instead every 4 years, and a WCC Challenge in October in years with no WC. RL is tribal, and a club based sport, thankfully. And I'm not in favour of having any amateur open age teams. The full-time teams should have A Teams/Reserve Teams.

it would probably cost too much as well

Dumb idea. Just rotate RLWC, ashes tour, NZ tour 6 natins for top tier
Pacific and Europe test series and cups plus RLWC qualifying for second tier countries.
Calendar sorted!

This.

The World Cup got decent crowds in 2013 because there hadn't been one here since 2000 and it was the first opportunity for a while to see the other nations like Fiji, Samoa etc.

I went to the game at Rochdale for precisely that reason.

But if I know they're gonna be back here again in 4 years time then I might hang on to my money.

8 years is another matter.


Every 2 years is too often and diminishes the importance and prestige of the event. It'd lead to lower attendances and lower sponsorship money.

We've got to stop looking for fast track solutions in international RL. Just because the World Cup has "worked" the last 2 times doesn't mean we do that more often. It means we continue with what works. And build that which currently isn't quite working as we'd like.

I posted it on another thread but if the Aussies could ever be convinced to hold SOO on 3 consecutive weeks with an NRL break for internationals then I'd like to see a calendar something along the lines of this:

Year 1 mid-season = Eng & France play each other and NZ & a PI nation
Year 1 end of season = GB test series v Aus or NZ down under & Aus or NZ to play v PI nations

Year 2 mid = Same as year 1 except down under
Year 2 end = Eng v Aus or NZ Test Series

Year 3 mid = Same as year 1
Year 3 end = 4/5 Nations down under

Year 4 mid = Same as year 1 except down under
Year 4 end = World Cup here


Give regular games to France and the PI nations and it allows space for a few more internationals per year.
The biggest step forward we've taken in decades was getting the World Cup set on a 4 year cycle so everyone knows when it is. Now we just need the other 3 years sorting.

With the ltd number of competitive countries it should be pretty simple to put together a rolling calendar!

2018 RLWC (Aus&NZ)
2019 NZ and Aus tour Europe, Europe cup and PI cup to qualify for 6 nations places
2020 6 nations
2021 England and France tour southern Hemi, Europe cup and PI cup for RLWC places
2022 RLWC (UK & France)

repeat ad nausea!

2018 RLWC
2019 Eng v NZ Test series...Aus v two of Samoa / PNG / Fiji / Tonga?
2020 Four Nations
2011 Aus v Eng Test series...NZ v two of Samoa / PNG / Fiji / Tonga?
2022 RLWC
2023 NZ v ENG Test series...Aus v two of Samoa / PNG / Fiji / Tonga?
2024 Four Nations
2025 Eng v Aus Test series NZ v two of Samoa / PNG / Fiji / Tonga?

Wouldn't that be nice? Throw in some France v England games and keep the Euro nations playing each other too. Would love to see an "emerging four nations" simultaneous to the 4n - Wales, France, PNG, Tonga maybe.