Could a knockout cup end the NRL's mid-season lull?

What are you on about? Playing everyone in the other conference once is 8 and playing everyone in your conference twice is 14. 8+14=22

Makes a lot of sense to me.

playing everyone in your conference once is 7 yes. Playing everyone in the other conference is 16, not 15.

I go shopping Thursday nights. Sorry.

Origin can stay on Wednesday night as long as there is a break before and after! For example. For one round play all games on friday night. 5 days later u have Origin. then the following weekend is empty! clever scheduling lads! By the same logic why cant Origin be on a thursday night.

It is a once a year derby! In each town! Otherwise NQld host the Broncos once every 2 years. Play everyone in your half is 7 games. Play everyone else once is 15 thats 22 total

Finally. Someone else who thinks logically.

Haha 2 x 8 = 16. 16 + 7 = 23. Travel costs could be equalised by making it a function of the NRL and splitting the combined cost of travel among the 16 clubs. I'm not sure if Brisbane should play the Cowboys twice, or Souths play the Roosters twice for that matter. By making it a once a year derby it becomes more of an event.

Your maths are a dash off. Thats a 22 round season - fine by me. But it would be unfair travelwise for the Syd teams to enjoy not having to fly while the rest of the league has to fly huge distances. Id rather a north south split and u still get lots of good Sydney rivalries N - NQld, Bris, Newc, GC, Manly, Parra, Penr, Cbury S - Melb, Auck, Canb, Cron, Easts, StGeo, Wests, Souths So everyone plays each other once AND those in their division again. This means slight savings on travel costs AND the rivalries we see here feature at each ground once per year, i.e Bris always plays NQld twice which should always occur.

Origin won't rate as well outside NSW-QLD if it is on a Sunday night. The AFL will make sure of that. On a Tuesday or Wednesday night the NRL is on a winner nationally. The NRL would be stupid to throw that away by playing Origin on Sundays to keep fans in NSW-QLD happy.

Alright Turbo, so what do you think of this idea: Sydney conference (8 teams) 'The Rest' conference (8 teams) Sydney teams play each other once (7 rounds), limits overall number of Games in Sydney, creates value through scarcity. Likewise with 'The Rest'. Trophy (eg 'Heritage Shield' for Sydney) and prize money awarded to top finishing team in each conference- creates excitement around the mid-season through meaningful games, potential to promote "conference decider." three week break for origin. Teams play everyone in the other conference twice(home and away) - 16 rounds 23 rounds total. 3 less rounds. Room for origin. Gives clubs structure and certainty on who they will play. Top 8 decided out of all 16 teams, not top four from each conference. Finals system stays.

planko good crowds and good TV numbers can easily be had. Maaate, it damages the brand to play games in front of so many empty seats. With very easy tweaks the crowds can be improved. As for this mid-week cup idea - terrible. Fans want to see games which have meaning and passion. This proposal would have neither. Fans attend Origin because it means something, there is passion about it and its a televised event and its promoted! All we need to do is to chop 2 rounds off the NRL main season and give those weeks to dedicated Origin somehow...

I think stand alone origin and a pool Pacific Nations series (PNG, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa) would be better... Something like Rep week 1 Friday - Fiji vs PNG Saturday - U20's State of Origin I Sunday - Tonga vs Samoa Monday - State of Origin I Rep week 2 Friday - Samoa vs PNG Saturday - U20's State of Origin II Sunday - Fiji vs Tonga Monday - State of Origin II Rep week 3 Friday - PNG vs Tonga Saturday - U20's State of Origin III Sunday - Samoa vs Fiji Monday - State of Origin III During this 3 week period, NZ could sort some sort of domestic comp out, or tour England or something.... leave 9s as a pre-season comp.

I think I outlined the reasons in my original comment, but I suppose the season being too long is a definite cause. I'm also in favour of having origin on consecutive weeks, but keeping it midweek. I think a mid-season lull is inevitable, with or without origin. But if we want to try and improve focus on the club comp then maybe we need to focus on that, like having some local derbies or double headers or something to increase interest. If we had conferences, the "conference finals" could be played during this time as part of the regular season, before the inter-conference part of the season starts. Just an idea, haven't worked out the nuts and bolts yet.

I'm only talking about if origin was made into a stand alone weekend series like being played on Friday or Sunday nights with no other NRL games on over three consecutive weekends. Instead of having the majority of NRL players not playing a game for four weeks, a nines series with its high tempo could allow those player maintain match fitness. It would be 2 weekends of round robin and the third weekend would be a knockout weekend which could lead into a Sunday night origin match. You could have the 9s final kick off at 6:00 Sunday night , by the time the game finishes and then presentation. Channel nine can go into the News at 6:45 for half an hour, then back to the telecast of Origin by 7:15 for all the build-up and crapathlon for a 8:00 kick off.

Honestly when players start getting injured in the mid-season knockout tournament and it starts impact upon the club's final's hopes, that will be the end of the knockout comp. There is no perfect solution to State of Origin but the better solution is to shift Origin to Sunday Nights so that the next NRL is unaffected. That reduces it from 6 to only 3 Origin affected weeks. There still needs to be 3 or 4 NRL games each round otherwise you'll start to see other codes put their big events on those weekends.

If you don't think Origin causes the mid season lull for fans of the NRL season, can you suggest another reason why? Season too long? Not enough quality players? Too big a gap between the top four teams and the rest, resulting in fewer high quality matches? Also, I'm not advocating moving the Origin season to the end of the year. I think mid year is the right time to have it, but I want it on stand alone, consecutive weekends. I want to lessen its impact on the NRL season as much as possible. A person only has a finite amount of attention they can give to anything. It is only natural that their attention will be drawn to a game featuring the best players, of a high intensity, rather than club games with some teams missing 2 or 3 of their best players.

Sorry AR and Boz, but I just can't agree with what you are saying. Having Origin midseason keeps the attention on Rugby League. Without it we would not have any increased interest in the club comp and also no rep footy. I can see why people think that Origin causes a midseason lull, but correlation isn't causation. Moving Origin will NOT increase interest in the regular season, but it WILL decrease interest in Rugby League overall. The NRL is right not to even consider such nonsense.

It creates an uneven playing field when some teams have their full roster of players available and others don't. Every team should have the opportunity to compete under the same conditions during origin. As it is it's unfair. Some games resemble a reserve grade comp anyway, the intensity visibly is different during origin as teams juggle player availability and player burnout. Stand alone seems a logical decision to me to even this out and create a stronger league product overall