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Your comments below.

Its been talked about down the pub in my neck of the woods. Personally I think the game should be at the end of the season when the champions are still together and prepared. An idea I like is that it acts as a link between the leagues and the 4Nations/World Cup. Whichever hemisphere the international tournament is in also hosts the WCC. A high proportion of the league winning team should be in their international squad anyway, so the amount of travelling is reduced. The two winning club sides play each other, on the same weekend the other international teams play their warm up games. This way you get to see the two teams at their peak, and some indication of the step up of intensity towards the 4Nations / World Cup.

For me this idea removes the issues around it always being in the UK, and it always being in the NRL off season, as well as the Sl team having to play their extra game mid-week.

is it not the case though for the super league, world club challenge and international game to grow the only way to do this is to reduce the number of teams in the competion and have two leagues of 10 which would mean 18/19(including magic weekend), then there would be room for the exiles game also more room to for any world club challenge games and still time for end of season games.
two leagues of 10 two up two down each season

My thoughts on this whole expanded agenda of the WCC is this, who would pay for and run it all?!


The RFL are off the rocker most of the time, NRL will only think of themselves and the RLIF struggle to even update their website.

I'd also like to see an expanded WCC comp, but I'd like to see it restricted to Challenge Cup Winners, League leaders and Superleague Champs (and Aussie equivalents), so it's truly the best teams. It would make a mockery of it if a team who'd come 4th in the league for a couple of years were then crowned World Club Champs... It would help give the League Leaders trophy back a bit of it's prestige too.

Would seem a shame to lose what little International Rugby League we already do have. I'd be more than happy to lose the extra fixture for "Magic" weekend, and make it just one of regular fixtures. I'd also happily make it only the top 6 that get into the Playoffs and reduce the number of games there. Perhaps similar to football, teams involved in the WCC get a bye in the first round of the cup too to reduce fixture numbers...

Agree it's best held straight after the Grand Finals when squads are all match fit and no players have moved on.

Care to expand on that? I'd say the game in this country is being more professionally run now than it has at any time in my memory.

There isn't space as it stands in the northern hemisphere calendar for an expanded WCC.

Reducing an already too short off-season should be resisted at all costs. The clubs won't tolerate a reduction in league games IMO, simply because most can barely manage on the income they generate at the moment without sacrificing some of that for a competition they probably won't qualify to take part in anyway.

So it's either goodbye to the Challenge Cup, or to representative rugby outside World Cup years - both of which offer much more to the game than an expanded WCC.

I'd keep the World Club Challenge as a annual event and at the same time of year, to be played at a neutral venue ie Dubai/Las Vegas or Hawaii.
Also every for years at the end of the season I'd have a Club Championship featuring the previous 4 seasons champions or the top seeded wildcard qualifies based records in the previous 4 seasons playoff's which would alternate between the UK/France and Aus/NZ over a 5 week period, this would consist of 2 groups of 4 teams with the top 2 from each group qualifying for the semis.

I'd stage the 4 nations tournament every two years. I'd also change the format. Week One Semi Finals and Week Two 3rd/4th place play off/ Final.

As a result of my ideas the international calender would be something like this.

2013- World Cup
2014- 4 nations
2015- World Club Championship
2016- 4 nations
2017- World Cup

I'd also get rid of stupid England v Exiles matches.

As a supporter, I wouldn't say no to a week on the session in Las Vegas!

IMO the RL calendar is pretty crammed as it is and although I take on the option of rotating a “Champions League” style completion with some of the existing post SL games, I still think this would be asking too much of our players.

For example:

2 x pre-season games
27 x Standard SL rounds
4 x Play Off games
1 x Grand Final
5 x Challenge cup games

Total = 39 games

Then to add a further 5 games in a “Champions League” style tournament at the end of an already punishing season. Throw in an Exiles (or similar exhibition match) and you could be asking some players to grace the field in up to 45 times in the same year.

I know we will be already asking this of our international charges (with the World Cup) but a “Champions League” would mean the entire squad – they’d be knackered!

Another possible and maybe even more radical idea would be to scrap domestic playoffs altogether and have the top 4 from SL and NRL have the WCC to decide who is the best in the world. This way all Internationals could still be in place! You could even have a 'Europa League' style competition for teams 5-8!

It is much harder to remove a playoff series than introduce one so i cant see it happening, but its a possibility!

Whatever happens I would definitely like to see more games between SL and NRL teams!

The problem is we (Aus) don't have a Challenge Cup type comp anymore.
It's been suggested many times and Gallop has said no. The only way I could see it working is this way :

NRL Champs : so in this case Manly
NRL Runners Up : NZ
NRL Minor Premiers : Melbourne

If thats the only problem we have then it will be up and running in 3 years!!

4 from each country is the best imo. If we put forward the 2 Grand Finalists and the highest place team not getting to the GF/CC runners up and the CC winners and they put forward there 2 Grand Finalists and 2 highest placed teams. Jobs a good un'!

You are not always gunna have 3 different teams winning trophies in 1 season like we did with SL this year so there has to be a fall back!

Hmm, I don't agree on sending the Challenge Cup winners into the competition at all. If this had been the case many moons ago Sheffield Eagles would have been in the competition and at the time they were doing poorly in the league.

I would suggest the two grand finalists to enter and then the best two placing clubs that were not in the GF. So in that case the World Club Challenge contest this year would consist of the following teams:

Super League:
GF Winner: Leeds Rhinos (5th)
GF Loser: St Helens (3rd)
1st Best Placed League Finish: Warrington Wolves (1st)
2nd Best Placed League Finish: Wigan Warriors (2nd)

NRL:
GF Winner: Manly Sea Eagles (2nd)
GF Loser: New Zealand Warriors (6th)
1st Best Placed League Finish: Melbourne Storm (1st)
2nd Best Placed League Finish: Brisbane Broncos (3rd)

Also not sure how I'd go about the matches. Should they be two legged affairs home and away?

That's saying something and that isn't a great deal

Our cup competition doesn't have a tv broadcaster at the moment (or if we do, where have we been told?). Our top flight league is still giving free advertising to a past sponsor (and its new one has promised to advertise our game on its trucks and how many have you seen?!). It let a club operate under farcical conditions and pull of the league.

No, the RFL is doing a grand job

Co-ordinate the two comps to finish the same weekend and have whatever games are to be played as a prelude to that season's International tournament in whichever hemisphere is applicable.

From SL's point of view the England team is pretty much drawn from the top three or four teams anyway and such games against their NRL counterparts would arguably present a better individual stepping stone to the Internationals than playing a cobbled together rep side in a warm-up - although as the collective element would be lost a warm-up may still be advantageous to England after the WCC.

I don't really see it happening - logistics, costs, sponsor interest would all have to be in place - but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like to, at least as a one-off to see if we can muster a challenge before it's inevitable binned.

Someone clearly doesn't understand the role of the RFL.

now it is in manchester bin the magic weekend but then we could do this
instead of a SOO they could be called the champion of champions

challenge cup winners v grandfinal runners up
challenge cup runners up ( or league leaders) v grand final winners

as a purely rerepresntative the non participating sides could do a Best of the rest v the Superleague select13 or fans pick13 and have 3 weeks of this type of representative rugby

the winners play each other the losers play each other as a roundrobin and a mini league

This idea is Trademarked so if it is a goer i want my percentage cut

So you've taken one weekend of fixtures out of the schedule and potentially added a further four (three round robin, then a final)?

I am in favour of a something like the 3 top clubs from SL & NRL playing an annual competiition after the GFs on the lines that GH proposed on Boots 'n All yesterday.

Serious consideration should be given to reducing the SL to 10 or 12 with promotion and relegation playoffs. I would ditch the 4 nations and return to alternative year tours with GB /Kangaroos /NZ & Islands. These tours could be 3 international Test Matches + 3/4 matches against club sides and I would continue the Exiles experiement. This plus an expanded WCC competition would get more games of high intensity and should improve our International chances.

Highlights from Boots 'n All were GH's sly dig at Wigan fans ("Manly had the same preparation as St George had last year..." guffaw), and Phil Clarkes impersonation of a 1920's public schoolboy (has his neck swollen or has his collar shrunk? Looks like he's stolen Mark Ronson's luggage). Stevo, to quote Stevo, has "completely lost the plot" - "you can't beat the Australians for 40 years then suddenly decide to change the competition". Mike, 40 years mate, 40 years is not "suddenly".

GH handled himslelf extrememly well - Eddie: "can, in about 10 seconds, you give us your thoughts on Jamie Peacock's MBE?", cue 10 seconds of silence while Gary waited to start giving his thoughts.

Just watched the 'Boots and All' .....GH is serious about this it appears and I hope he is instrumental in getting something off the ground. However I do think the concept of 3rd v 3rd; 2nd v 2nd and 1st v 1st is a bit hopeless. Apart from the 1st v 1st the remaining matches wil be devoid of any meaning at all. Better to put all six clubs in the mix with the two respective GF winners (played same weekend) seeded in some way to miss out on the first round.

We can certainly dispense with the useless exiles (not Nantwich).

You think it promotes our game well and gets it out there?


really?

Yes.

Next.

oh dear

You're the one suggesting it doesn't Loz, and using two examples that fall clearly within the jurisdiction of SLE rather than the RFL to "prove" your point.

If you can back up your assertion that the RFL is failing, despite it being more financially robust than at any time in recent history, continuing to expand the open age, junior and women's games into new areas. a 27% increase in participation across players, officials, coaches and volunteers and running the largest knockout tournament in the world in the Champion Schools competition, go ahead.