The English Super League needs a Nines tournament

With the second running of the Auckland Nines coming up in a few days time, I thought it would be good to re-visit the issue that I covered for a UK website in the wake of the inaugural Nines last year.

From the reports I read and the clips I saw on YouTube last year, it was clear that the Auckland Nines weekend was a fantastic success with the reduced numbers on the field creating more space for the likes of Shaun Johnson, James Tedesco and Sam Tomkins to wreak havoc with wonderful sidesteps, great offloads and long-distance tries.

Add in the great weather, the beautiful Eden Park, crowds of over 40,000 on both days with a carnival atmosphere, fans from all over Australia and New Zealand and it’s difficult to see how it could get any better.

As everyone will recall, the North Queensland Cowboys carried away their first ever trophy in their 20th anniversary year and it was made even sweeter by beating the Brisbane Broncos, their Queensland rivals, in the final.

It was clear that you Antipodeans had created and promoted a rugby league concept that may endure and captivate for years to come.

As you may know, the Super League has a new structure this year, with a reduction of the number of clubs in the top tier to 12 and only finishing in the top eight guarantee’s you a place in the following year’s top competition. Each team play’s each other home-and-away with a 23rd fixture at the Magic Weekend to be held at St. James’ Park, the home of Premier League football team Newcastle United in the North-East of England.

Now, the Magic Weekend is a great concept and is growing and is not something the game in the UK should abandon.

Why don’t the Rugby Football League simplify things and remove that 23rd fixture but keep the Magic Weekend and do something special with it??

Welcome to the Magic Weekend Super Nines Tournament!

That’s right! See a good idea, take it and use it to your advantage. Everything the Aussies do well, we nearly always copy, so why not this? I am convinced it would be a success.

The only unfortunate thing is that we would have to get the RFL involved in organising it. Or would we?

Could the RFL be persuaded to set up a separate organising committee of forward thinking individuals who could concentrate on this tournament and make it something special, a la the World Cup!

For this to happen, the clubs would have to buy into this concept completely and fully support it.

There’s no using the weekend to rest players because no league points are at stake; a rule could be that there are no more than two players per squad who have not appeared in Super League games prior to the weekend, meaning the vast majority of Super League stars would be on show.

This was the only real negative of the Auckland Nines, that the majority of clubs left out their big name internationals.

An organising committee would have the time and contacts to attract a major sponsor for the event – making it financially worthwhile for the clubs (the winners of the Auckland 9’s took home AUS$500,000 and the total tournament prize money was AUS$2.25m) and they would also have the time and ability to promote the tournament to the public. The television rights could also be sold separate to the Super League rights, with Sky, BT Sports and Premier Sports likely to bid for the competition.

The tournament would have to be full of razzamatazz, making it a fun filled weekend that parent’s could take their kids too and come home saying ‘Wow – I can’t wait for next year.‘

The clubs would have a specially designed Nines jersey, just like the Auckland tournament, which would bring in extra revenue in merchandise sales and hopefully the designers would show a little imagination.

Team’s could be allowed to throw in a curve ball and bring back retired players from the recent past to add some flavour – imagine Bobbie Goulding running out for St. Helen’s (he played for Barrow in the level below Super League last year at the age of 42). Think of Lee Briers turning out for Warrington Wolves, Jason Robinson or Andy Farrell pulling on a Wigan jersey again or Keith Senior running riot for the Leeds Rhinos, the list could go on. The hype and buzz around Australia was huge last year when it was revealed Brad Fittler and Steve Menzies were coming out of retirement to play in the tournament.

Also, the rules could be altered to make the concept even more exciting, penalty goals could be removed, there would be bonus zones such as an extra point for scoring a try between the goal posts as in Auckland, and what about an extra point for scoring from your own half between the 10 and 50 yard lines and two points for scoring from behind your own try line and up to the 10 yard line!

So, a try that is worth four points as standard could become a seven point try if, for example, Kieran Dixon picks up a kick behind his own try line, carries the ball out and breaks the defensive line, draws in the opposition full back and sends Ken Sio away to score between the posts – four points for the try, two points for the move originating before the 10 yard line and an extra point for scoring between the posts, seven points + two points for the conversion resulting in a nine point try.

What a killer that would be if you were eight points up in the last minute and your opposition did that – it would be scintillating.

The tournament would also add a third major trophy into the season for all Super League teams to play for.

I think it could work – it just needs a bit of imagination and the right people to push it forward.