Here’s the basic idea of creating a pre-season NRL tournament that has a proper structure, can be taken to regional and expansion areas, and can be sold to broadcasters.
You could have an NRL pre-season country cup with pools of four teams playing 20 minute matches against each other.
For an 18-team comp there would be three NRL teams in each pool plus one other team for a total of six pools of four. Those additional teams would be made up of local sides, Amco Cup-style, representing future expansion areas like New Zealand, Central Queensland etc. The make up of the pools would change each week such that every team plays nine other teams across the the first three weeks.
If you ran that format for three weeks teams would have played 180 minutes of pre-season football rather than the current 240 minutes – but you’d have 18 pool games to play around regional and future expansion areas.
You could guarantee one pool round every year for Perth, Adelaide, Darwin, Hobart, Melbourne, Gosford, Sunshine Coast, Central Queensland, Cairns, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, Fiji and PNG, or, when those areas get new teams, then you can look at games at heritage stadiums in existing locations.
There would be enough games at grounds with lighting and enough daylight games that you could televise the majority of matches, earning additional revenue.
The six qualifying teams could have a game in their local area, so obviously Central Queensland would get a pool game at Rockhampton etc – but it means that there would be three NRL teams in the area out there visiting the local communities.
After three weeks the best four teams on the overall ladder would qualify for a final week of competition structured in a similar manner but with a seventh 20-minute game between the best two performing teams out of the final four.
Of course to do this the World Club Challenge needs to be moved to October (where it should be and alternated between host locations) and the All Stars game could be held on the Friday or Saturday of grand final week, or those players would simply be exempt from round one of pool matches.
The Charity Shield match could simply be scheduled as the first game of the proper NRL season for the Rabbitohs and Dragons.
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Channel 9 have contacted Fox League for comment after vision emerged of the NRL journalist's fight with a member of the public.
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