After witnessing a bit of interest in my proposal to shift next season’s World Club Challenge to Melbourne, and with a bit of time before the Four Nations kicks off, I thought I’d put the idea to Leeds Rhinos CEO, Gary Hetherington.
Hetherington has a bit of reputation in the UK as something of a rugby league visionary. In Australia he’d probably be anointed a ‘good operator’ and seems at ease talking about rugby league expanding beyond the renowned the M62 corridor.
As a background, he explained that the WCC concept is joint owned by England’s Rugby Football League (RFL) and Australia’s NRL, so any change to the format needs to be managed and directed by those bodies.
He also explained that the reason the game had been held in the UK over the past season was down to the respective seasons and the certainty of income that could come from playing the game in England.
In regards to the first point, he said that the thought that match could potentially be played in North Queensland in middle of February was a turn off to both competitions (England, it seemed, were always able to guarantee a cold evening).
Hetherington also revealed to The Roar that he had previously worked on taking to game to locations such as Dubai and Singapore. He felt that they held the attraction of being “in between” both hemispheres, as well as locations with a history of staging such events in the sporting world.
The stumbling block was finding an organisation keen to back the concept to make it more financially attractive than the status quo.
While that project remains a work in progress, Hetherington is also looking to build support for an expanded competition, which would see the top three sides from each competition playing off over one ‘blockbuster’ weekend.
“We’d hope that this sort of concept could grow to have an almost State of Origin appeal as the Super League faced off with the NRL,” Hetherington said.
“The creditability of the current fixture is growing, you can see this by the sides the Australian teams are putting out. Both Melbourne and Manly put out full strength teams when we played them over the past two years, and we think this expanded format would be a tremendous success and create huge interest.”
Hetherington’s plan would have the two third placed sides play each other on the Friday night, the runner’s up on the Saturday and the respective champions on the Sunday.
It’s a proposal he put to a number of NRL clubs when he recently visited and received support from no fewer than six clubs, all who felt it would be commercially successful.
The same plan will be put to the English club at the Super League annual conference next year, and the search will be on for a viable promoter.
So we look to be on to something. So what about taking on the Storm in Melbourne?
Not so fast. The Storm will play Leeds at Elland Rd with a provisional date set down on the third week of February.
The Storm are almost certain to play a warm up game prior to that match elsewhere in the UK again. But Hetherington was unsure whether the Harlequins would again be holding the London Rugby League Challenge, as they did last year.
So some positive work in the pipeline, which is a nice alternative to usual pipe dream which these things usually are for rugby league fans.
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Mr cheese said | October 15th 2009 @ 7:16am | Report comment
Mr Hetherington may be a visionary but he’s dreaming if the thinks that RL will ever take off beyond the M62 corridor.
RL just won’t be accepted in the midlands or the south ( or even in most of the north ).
Meanwhile, as they seek to take the game to new areas, they’re neglecting traditional towns such as Widnes, Halifax, Leigh, Keighley etc. Why should their fans buy a ticket when, come what may, they won’t get to the Super League ???
Mr. Hetherington should probably return to the real world. Certain people in English RL seem to live in the clouds.
You don’t have this problem in Aussie because of the size of the sport. The demographic problem in England is simple: apart from Leeds, very few cities like RL. It only really exists in towns. It would need to take off in cities ( as you have with Sydney and Brisbane ) for it to become popular over here.
Is the boss of Leeds Rhinos re-arranging deckchairs on the Titanic ??? You can talk about Dubai all night long. Most people in England, meanwhile, know zip about Rugby League. I’m not happy about that, but c’est comme ca….
Regards,
Dan said | October 15th 2009 @ 10:03am | Report comment
Why is it that Rugby League never took off in England Mr Cheese?
You’ve made a number of comments concerning the ‘public school boy nature’ of Rugby Union working against it in comparison to soccer, but this is most emphatically not the case with Rugby League; it’s a working man’s game through and through. Should it not then be embraced in the same way soccer has? Or is it simply that most English prefer to keep the violence in their games off the field so it has a chance to be expressed in the stands?
Mr cheese said | October 15th 2009 @ 9:38pm | Report comment
Ah, the traditional “all football fans are hooligans” line. If you are trying to interest us English in RL, don’t call us hooligans. Football is our game and we don’t want to be tarred with the same brush. Anyway, I don’t know what happened pre-1895 but the fact is that the working classes ( and a few others besides ) just prefer football. You may find that bizarre, but that’s how it is. Football has been embraced by a lot more people than RL. That’s true in England and it’s true in the world outside.
As I said, RL has little presence in the cities apart from Leeds. You can talk about the “English violence in the stands” all you like, but people think that watching the round ball is easier on the eye.
Dan said | October 16th 2009 @ 10:21am | Report comment
Well, I didn’t say you were all hooligans, merely noting that hoolidanism seems to be close to soccer exclusive… it’s clearly not a class thing, otherwise we’d have had our own investigations into high numbers of football related murders and bashings with the AFL and Rugby League – or indeed American Football. I’ve always felt that the combination of high numbers of very negative low scoring matches, often rustling in draws, combined with the lack of any real physicality is what drives the fans to violence. The emotional payoff must be good when you finally score I’d imagine, but the number of times you don’t seems to cause the kind of aggression inducing frustration that sees… well sees a government have to intervene to stop fans killing eachother :S. It just seems to me that the more brutal the games are on-field, the less they are off it.
I’ve no problem dealing with soccer being the world game, it’s simplicity and accessibility is a credit to it. But that doesn’t mean I have to find it interesting. Honestly, world game or no I just find it boring as batshit watching teams run around for 90 mins, falling over whenever someone breathes on them too hard, only to get to 0-0 or 1-1. The rest of the world can enjoy it all they like, but please don’t tell me that because they do it means the game is good. over 90% of the world believe in god, but that doesn’t mean he’s up there.
Steffy said | October 15th 2009 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
Who says it never took off in England?
Dan said | October 15th 2009 @ 10:23am | Report comment
Further, just as an interesting point of contrast with England, in Australia I’ve always found soccer fans (the ones who weren’t born in Europe or brought up by European immigrants) to be decidedly bourgeois . The majority of soccer fans I know generally have it as their preferred game because they don’t actually like sport, but the feel that supporting soccer is evidence of multiculturalism and progressive nature. It is almost as if it represents a counter-culture; that they support it in protest of the indigenously popular and internationally limited Rugby League and AFL. This is obviously not the case with everyone, but often you will find people who support the game will always make a point of saying in a self-satisfied tone “I prefer the WORLD game” , though often times they don’t watch the A-League anyway and have only a passing interest come WC time. That is to say, it seems pretty clear to me that in Australia people often like the idea of soccer as evidencing their cultured nature, rather than soccer itself.
JF said | October 16th 2009 @ 10:41am | Report comment
Too true. This article is what you are talking about, very funny.
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/03/03/80-the-idea-of-soccer/
jus de couchon said | June 18th 2010 @ 9:15am | Report comment
Thanks Dan. Couldnt have said it better myself.
Maybe off topic but does soccer mean globilisation and the erosion of local ways of life?
John said | October 15th 2009 @ 8:08am | Report comment
Rugby League has never had a good relationship with the South or Midlands of England, but that’s because it has always expanded without any real junior development to back it up. In the last 10-15 years that has changed though. London is now a thriving hotbed of junior development, and it is those children and their families who will provide the first wave of new fans, slowly but surely. Not overnight, but in 20 years – we’ll have a solid base, and in the grand scheme of things, 20 years is nothing at all.
For over 100 years, despite rugby league being the perceived pro game, and union pretending to be amateur, the league code has always had to deal with dirty tactics played against it. Players were banned from union for life if they were to try rugby league (until 1995), the game was banned from the armed services, and it was held out of the universities and private schools thanks to a bigoted rugby union old boys network. The same applies to the game’s media coverage.Things have changed greatly now however. None of those issues remain.
If the South of England does not take to the game as has been so ignorantly suggested, then they will simply be left behind and replaced by the more exotic and enticing avenues of France and the rapidly developing game on the continent. Who cares about some English midlands city that most of the world has never heard of, when clubs can be drawn from more lucrative markets in France, Spain and Wales.
Nick said | October 15th 2009 @ 9:41am | Report comment
Spain? France? Wales?
Wales is a small backwater attached to England that is already hardly supporting one team… they certainly wont be supporting two.
France may indeed have a second team soon, but just as Rugby Union will never defeat Rugby League in Australia, so shall Rugby League never over come the huge support for Rugby Union in France.
And finally Spain… Spain? Don’t mistake Les Catalans playing one game in Barcelona as a sign of the huge support and player numbers for the sport there. Rugby Union clubs have been playing Heineken Cup matches in Spain for years and drawing much bigger crowds, yet professional Rugby Union is yet to become main stream there (though it has taken some steps in recent years). Rugby League isn’t even played in Spain to any nation-wide degree.
If Rugby League is to make any significant progress in the next few years it must be to create a national foot-print in its two major regions – England and Australia. Besides that maybe Ireland and Scotland are more realistic then a second Welsh side or Spain… at least they can create ex-pat teams that can qualify for the World Cup.
Matt S said | October 15th 2009 @ 8:23am | Report comment
Mr Cheese, rugby league may not be a game played by the multitudes but you would be pleasantly surprised at the number of clubs outside the traditional areas and the juniors they have attached to them. Again, not the size in numbers of association football but not bad considering the obstacles placed in front of the sport for decades.
Here are some links of a handful of clubs (Rhinos link has links to other clubs) who have now been around for more than a decade or so in areas not normally associated with league. On the conference website (go to tables) you will also notice most of those midlands clubs have been around for a while now.
http://www.rugbyleagueconference.co.uk/
http://www.rhinos.co.uk/
http://www.coventrybears.co.uk/
http://www.nottinghamrl.co.uk/
Mr cheese said | October 15th 2009 @ 9:30am | Report comment
I think John was accusing me of ignorance, which is a little harsh since I have attended many RL matches in the past ( though not for some years, I admit ).
I am from Liverpool myself, so I’ve some idea of what it’s like to be from a northern area where RL is unknown. People often talk about “the north” as being a RL region. In reality, it’s generally towns of the north. Certain towns took to it but the cities remain uninterested: Liv, Manchester, SUnderland, Sheffield, Newcastle.
I think, John, that you are naive. RU is growing in France. That can only be a problem for RL. It is daft to talk about “lucrative markets” on the back of the odd match. The south of France likes RU and football. Spain likes football. None of this will change.
THe problem is that you can find strange little clubs all over the place: a sumo wrestling club in Derbyshire, for example ( I am not making this up )/ Just because there is a little RL club in Nottingham, it doesn’t mean things are changing.
I would like to see RL get bigger in England. We just have to live in the real world, that’s all.
Rodney McDonell said | October 15th 2009 @ 8:26am | Report comment
I think the WCC hold more credability than as a 1 v 1. It should not expand to more clubs unless other nations pick up the game and become compeditive. That’s my feelings. However, it might be worth having the U20s also involved.
I would like to see the games come to Australia. I think this would be especially important for a club like the Melbourne Storm – who’s fans come from primarily Australian Rules background where they’re club could not hope to play any clubs not located in Australia.
I’m certain a Melbourne Storm v Leeds Rihons at Ethihad would generate at least 30,000. You’d get a version passionate melbourne supporter base turning up, plus interested Melbournites who follow the storm and of course your madd rugby league fans who would love to see the WCC, maybe for the first time.
If it was being held in melbourne this year, I would have booked my ticket as soon as the 2009 NRL GF was decided.
Also, I’m sure that, the WCC would also be one more game the Vic government would like to get behind. They’ve been supportive of the Storm, SOOs, Tests etc, so much so they’ve built a purpose built stadium. I’m sure they’d back the WCC.
JF said | October 15th 2009 @ 9:53am | Report comment
I think the concept of expanding the WCC is a good one, international RL games without the cringe factor of the RLWC.
Viscount Crouchback said | October 15th 2009 @ 10:10am | Report comment
Rugby League? Is it still going? Ferrets and cloth caps? Downtrodden northern folk standing morosely on terraces whilst psychopathic brutes knock each other about?
Gosh, I thought it went out with Abba. I’ll have to take a trip up to Yorkshire and have a good gawp at a soon to be extinct species!
Mr cheese said | October 15th 2009 @ 10:25am | Report comment
Harsh, Silverback.
This is the sort of “Tim nice but dim” garbage that has held England back in certain sports e.g. rugby union and tennis. Not that I much care for tennis, of course, but nevertheless…..
You, Viscount Silverback, remind me of John Inverdale, the BBC’s “Tim nice but dim”. No wonder the country’s in a mess when they have an illiterate like him in a position of prominence at the BBC.
Are you, Silverback, one of those who believe that Rugby Union will take over from football ? The downtrodden of the north ( of whom I am one ) still reckon that football is a bit more interesting than RU. How many teams from the NW are in the Premier League ? 8, is it ?
Keep dreaming, Silverback. You will be sad to learn that they even admit women to certain golf clubs these days. Or at least they admit that women exist.
Viscount Crouchback said | October 15th 2009 @ 10:48am | Report comment
John Inverdale is a corking chap and does not deserve such opprobrium to be heaped upon his head on a colonial website (of all places!) As for rugger being “held back” – two glorious World Cup Finals in succession would suggest otherwise, old fruit. Tennis is irrelevant – it is merely a social pastime; only dominatrix fathers from the former Eastern Bloc take it remotely seriously as an international sport.
Of course rugger will never take over from soccer in England. Why should it? That’s about as likely as the lumpen proletariat of Lancashire showing more interest in Cicero than they do in Coronation Street. In any case, I have no desire to see the great unwashed suddenly descend upon the rugger grounds of England. You keep to your side of the fence. I’ll keep to mine. That’s how we like it.
Mr cheese said | October 15th 2009 @ 6:28pm | Report comment
Good stuff, silverback. Kep taking the waccy baccy. I like your argument that the 2007 rugby union world cup final was glorious. My take was that it was about as interesting as reading Cicero. No tries, no entertainment, and no NZ.
You could say “does not deserve to have such opprobrium heaped on his head” if you really wanted to.
The sentence “john Inverdale does not deserve such opprobrium to be heaped on his head” is incorrect. You need to look at the verb “deserve” again.
Anyway, I don’t know that the people of Lancashire do watch Coronation Street. Its viewers all live in Bristol and GLoucester, don’t they ?
We are lucky that the really weird and boring sport on Rugby Union belongs to the really weird and boring rugger buggers. We can avoid it and them at the same time. I am afraid that John Inverdale embodies the problem: a “Tim nice but dim” who wasn’t good enough to go to Oxford or the other one.
You may, however, be right to condemn tennis.
Tom Alexander. said | October 15th 2009 @ 11:16am | Report comment
Australia and the NRL should be the main driving force behind the expansion of Rugby League world wide. Reading the responses on the various sporting forums and blogs around North America, Spike tv’s NRL telecast opened a few eyes to the game of Rugby League and it went down quite well. Many Americans commented that they didn’t know that there was another form of Rugby and that they prefered this form to the 15 man game, primarily because of it’s speed of play and big hits. Maybe a pre-season game between an NRL Club and a SL Club (South Sydney vs Leeds which attracted 12000) should be a permenent fixture. In England the traditional clubs like Widnes and Halifax should be re-admitted into the top flight, with possibly Toulouse and a Cumbrian side further down the track) . Expand the Amateur game but stick with the traditional clubs at the elite level. With a few exceptions, the same philosophy needs to be practiced in the NRL.
Firestarter Bob said | October 15th 2009 @ 11:37am | Report comment
Steve – I fail to see the appeal of the 2nd and 3rd placed teams playing against each other for no particular prize. What’s the point of going to the other side of the planet for a one off game, other than to get on the drink and risk another round of headlines?
I think having the top 3 or 4 clubs from each competition involved in a WCC tournament has merit, but I can’t see any format that works. If there is one though, I would make it mandatory that the Catalans and NZ Warriors take part in the expanded WCC.
How much easier would the WCC be if Australia & NZ had a Challenge Cup knock-out competition. Then the WCC could involved the top clubs or winners from the Aust/NZ and the UK/France Challenge Cups. Would love to see North Sydney take on Widnes in the WCC final.
As this WCC has nothing to do with the salary cap, then the clubs should also be able to sign “guest” players from other league or union teams.
Mick from Giralang said | October 15th 2009 @ 1:41pm | Report comment
The WCC is a terrific concept that over the years has showcased the strength of the British club competition. Melbourne have also used it effectively as pre season preparation, playing a trial match beforehand on English soil. I’m sure if other clubs were given the chance of participatng, they would for this reason alone. Thank heavens the game doesn’t listen to the knockers like some of the mealy-mouthed critics on this site — if there are people like Heatherington with their hands on the reins of the British game, then its future looks rosy.
The Link said | October 15th 2009 @ 4:53pm | Report comment
Good piece Steve. Why blokes like Gary Hetherington and Michael Searle aren’t running RL in the UK and Australia, or even the IRLF I don’t know. Put them in a room together with relevant parties and I reckon they’d give even Middle East peace a chance.