Oh great we'll just play it in the same city and stadium as the first international.

Be great when England vs Australia is booked for Wembley or ANZ Stadium and then Castleford and Melbourne win the Grand Finals.

Given RL's struggles to market and sell tickets we are now staying let's take this event and give just them a two week window to pull it off, especially after fans will have just splashed out on a GF.....yeah sure it'll be as successful.

One of the big arguments for doing it straight after is that it'd be the GF lineups. But would it really? Would we just see the Aussie team go back to 10+ years ago and see it as an inconvenience and leave out the several guys who will no doubt have knocks and need off season surgery? How patched up have Wigan and Leeds been in the last two GF's? Very patched up. You'd just start an argument that it isn't either teams strongest 17.

You sure about all that?

Isn't the prevailing ideology that everything prior to Super League and summer rugby was rubbish?

Wigan played Manly in 1987 in front of almost 37,000 fans just 10 days after the 1987 Aussie Grand Final had been played.

Widnes played Canberra in 1989 in front of over 30,000 fans just 10 days after the 1989 Aussie Grand Final.

Wigan played Penrith in 1991 in front of over 20,000 fans just 10 days after the 1991 Aussie Grand Final had been played.

How on earth did they manage to overcome such logistical nightmares back then?

So the logistics werent that hard really were they.

Whats next on ThePrinter's scatter gun?
Castleford may play Melbourne? Brilliant. That would be a good thing

RL fans are poor and can't afford tickets after splashing out on the charabanc to the tropical delights of Manchester? RL fans arent poor.

That the Aussies would no longer take it seriously because of the change in timing? What kind of idiot coach would rather rest players who have knocks and see it as more of an inconvenience to have it played when they have 0 games coming up as opposed to when they have an entire season of games coming up?

How much preparation did Wigan/Widnes have for these fixtures?

It wouldn't be resting them, it'd be not risking them. If an NRL's star player is carrying a knee issue do you think they're going to play him in the WCC and have him make it worst and face lengthy time out because of it?

I dont think if an NRL star is carrying a knee injury at risk of a lengthy time out would be risked in most games.

I do think it far more likely they would be played in a WCC prior to 0 clubs games as compared to a WCC prior to an entire season of games.

But a GF team is obviously going to have a lot of players carrying knocks and issues at the end of a long season. In February it won't be anywhere near that as players are fit and fresh.

Of course. Its well known that in terms of fitness and conditioning teams aim to peak prior to the season starting and not towards the end of the season.

Doesn't matter when they try to peak for, the teams will still have many more injuries and knocks in October than February.

You know thats when we play internationals right?

Yes and that's when several guys are always ruled out through injury and if they clubs had their way (which they would for a post season WCC) you'd more than likely see even more withdrawn.

The wigan-penrith crowd was fairly disappointing for a decider between the top teams of their respective hemispheres played at a time when both might have been expected to be at their peak, or certainly at a better level than they're at in today's WCC. Any reason for that? Novelty wearing thin?
I'm not saying the logistics of a game played then are impossible but I do wonder whether it would hold the interest of the average fan whenever it was played. Certainly the series of WCC games involving Leeds saw a fairly rapid drop off from the 38k-odd that were at the Bulldogs fixture. And recent fixtures involving different teams are little better.

And what, precisely, has the last weekend in February got going for it?

An extra 4 months of planning, marketing, promoting it, selling tickets. Do you honestly think the RFL and SL clubs can do the same job in just two weeks on the half chance that the lineups are the same as in the GF's?

Playing it the season after detracts immensely from what it is meant to represent.

Agree.

The main reason is that as a sport we shoehorn our International season into a single month at the end of the season. There just isn't the time to do it then as it stands.

The SL/NRL calendars would need lining up properly to have the GF's on the same weekend. In fact, the whole RL calendar needs lining up between the SL/NRL with dedicated International breaks (perhaps whilst Aus play Origin over 3 consecutive weekends).

Don't talk sense!

We should continue to play seasons that don't match up, making internationals and the like impractical or trivial due to understrength teams while also playing under different sets of rules to each other...

That maybe correct but still doesn't mean it's a smart idea to try hastily arranging the game in 2 weeks.

And how long do you get for the Grand Final ?

If the Venue is sorted, it shouldn't be a major hassle and depending what happens with the 4N, many players would probably be over here or in Aus anyway.
There maybe some disruption to the planning for the National team though.

As a Leeds fan you surely admit that, the Leeds team that played in the last WCS bore no resemblance to the triple winners of the season before and as such, the game was not Champions vs Champions and this rendered the game meaningless.
Ok it was a test of the "new" Leeds team vs their Aussie counterparts but, not the game that it should have been.
Also, the extended games were just space fillers, with no meaning whatsoever and if we're going to increase the number of clubs, it should be Champions vs Champions, Cup Winners vs Cup Winners etc and not just random games.
Of course, if one club won more than one title, there would need to be some kind of system for allowing the runners up to
play.
The concept becomes much harder to market if we dont have bonafide contenders.

Why would two weeks not be enough time?

This isn't the 1980's, we have the internet now and travel & accommodation can be booked at a moments notice.

Venues can be sourced and provisionally booked prior to the GF's.

Tickets can be made available a couple of days after the GF's, again on the internet, giving fans ample time to buy their tickets.


Two weeks notice isn't the issue, the International season is the issue.

Maybe England should announce their fixtures and venues 2 weeks before Australia and NZ next come over as well? Maybe the RU Lions should leave their tour until the last minute and cricket should decide which venues with gold Ashes tests just two weeks before it starts.

People complain when England only announce international fixtures and venues halfway through the season yet now we want to take a showpiece game and scramble it together in two weeks?

And no GF's and CC's aren't the same as the date and venue are set in stone and neutrals can buy tickets all year long and SL can organise the whole event well in advance. And we still struggle to sell out these games even given the long time they have to sell.

If we had to play after the 2015 GF I doubt the team would've stayed near the same given how patched up we were at the time, same for Wigan who will probably be stronger than their GF lineup. What would Wigan playing two weeks after the GF prove? When they lost people would just argue that it wasn't Wigan at full strength.

You see how teams struggle to get up again after a CC Final win, you really think they'd be able to go again, against an NRL team no less, in another final 2 weeks later. They'd get smashed probably worst than now.

It's a World Club game played at a club sides home ground. You comparing it to filling the GF or CC at Old Trafford and Wembley is a little bit of an exaggeration. I agree, they aren't the same at all, and I didn't bring up the comparison.

So basically your only challenge to the WC being 2 weeks after the GF's is that it isn't long enough for tickets to sell to neutrals?


Compare it to the end of the season. Between Round30 and the Playoff semi is 1 week. Going into R30 Hull v Wire last season, we could've been in the semi finals at home, at Wire or at Wigan. We had a week to sort tickets, with the venues in place beforehand depending on the outcome.

Then there's the playoff semi and the week before the Grand Final. Plenty of fans will wait to see if their team gets there and then get a ticket in that week.

A WC two weeks after the GF's is plenty of time to sort a ticket out.

IF it was a "world final" 2 weeks after the respective grand final's and the clubs involved knew it was going to happen, I dont see what your point is.
The Grand Final comes straight after the semi final and there doesn't seem to be an issue with players getting injured in the semi.
Your argument just doesn't hold water as it would be the same for all of the clubs involved, especially if the respective seasons were adjusted to start and finish at the same time.

You are trying to say that it is better to have the teams play as a "warm up" to the new season, when clearly, they are not at their best or, that we should do as in previous years when the Aussie clubs were 2 weeks behind ours, in terms of pre season and match fitness.
Plus, you haven't even mentioned the contrived fixtures, because the Aussie clubs couldn't be bothered getting involved.

The theory is do it right or, dont bother.

We need our Aussie friends to be fully on board with the concept, with no excuses and then get the game(s) on.