Cup Competition

[warrington greg]

after watching the challenge cup yesturday i wondered why do the NRL not have a cup competiton. Do u think it would work in Australia. Its something else than just the league every week and another chance to win something. I think they should brong one in for the 2007 season.

 

[tbone10]

greg i doubt they would, the players bitch enough now about how they play too much in a season so it will never happen.

 

[raiders fan forever]

i would love to see a little challenge cup or a pre season cup or what ever but as tbone said i doubt it

 

[East Coast Tiger]

We talked about this at work today and decided it would never happen but it would be good if it did.
NRL clubs, Jim Beam Cup, Qld Cup, Country Divisional sides and emerging states sides included. It would be a bigger event for the smaller teams/clubs but the NRL clubs would probably hate it, unless there was a big prize purse up for grabs.

 

[lockyno1]

Waste of time. Players play enough games and the top players play SOO and test matches. That is enough games for them. They will burnout quicker if more games are scheduled!

 

[warrington greg]

if they gave a big cash prize or other incentives i think it could go down well. these players are meant to be the fitest around and another 5 (that is if you go all the way to the final) really wouldnt make that much difference i dont think.

 

[balmainbenny]

A pre-season comp like the old "Tooheys Challenge" would be great. I can't see it happen though.

 

[League Freak™]

A terrible idea.

 

[bartman]

I used to enjoy the mid-week Amco/National Panasonic/whatever Cup. Televised Wednesday night games at Leichhardt Oval back in the day. Same principle as the UK Challenge Cup, and the FA Cup in soccer.

An extra commitment in the season, and that was in the days before our players were earning mega fulltime salaries and employing player managers etc...

 

[jimmythehand]

Bring it on - and make the NRL regular season shorter!

 

[jimmythehand]

or how about ...... some of the regular season games contribute to the cup competition as well. When it gets to say the quarter finals, introduce the best country team, best metro team, and play the last few games on wednesday night.

 

[Leagueguy]

I'd rather see some kind of national second tier competition. This could have Qld cup and premier league teams. Maybe it could it be done so that after say 20 rounds or something the top 4 teams from each competion form a top 8 and play in a finals series. A little like the superbowl. This would have to increase interest in the Qld Cup.

However could a top qld cup team ever match a top premier league side? I imagine that the lower ranked premier league teams might easily beat a low ranked Qld cup team. However some teams like Norths and Toowoomba who are feeder clubs may be competitive.

 

[coolumsharkie]

I'd rather see some kind of national second tier competition. This could have Qld cup and premier league teams. Maybe it could it be done so that after say 20 rounds or something the top 4 teams from each competion form a top 8 and play in a finals series. A little like the superbowl. This would have to increase interest in the Qld Cup.

However could a top qld cup team ever match a top premier league side? I imagine that the lower ranked premier league teams might easily beat a low ranked Qld cup team. However some teams like Norths and Toowoomba who are feeder clubs may be competitive.

So long as the sponsorship $ covered the travel, accom etc and prize money.

The other problem would be the amount of eligable PL and Qld cup players that are actually playing NRL get dropped on purpose if they were no chance of making the semi's. If it proved a success then there would be other problems due to rorting the system in some way.

 

[jamesgould]

Along these lines, but it wouldn't include any extra games, why not have a challenge shield? Give it to Melbourne at the moment, then every team that plays Melbourne at home tries to win it off them? Then, say the Bulldogs win it, subsequent Bulldogs home games are for the sheild.

Call it the Reg Gasnier Sheild or something ... would be great, I reckon. And eventually (although all Melbourne's home games are exciting right now, anyway, since they are top of the table), when it made it's way to a lesser team, it would add something to otherwise less exciting matches.

 

[jamesgould]

I also think the pre-season could be easily arranged to include a pre-season knock-out comp. Set down country towns for the games, then also set down venues where teams that are knocked out could play their second and, if they wanted, third trial. With the venues already in place, it would just mean that the teams would be decided upon by who lost in the first round - thus allowing sides to rest their top teams if they wanted, and not have to worry about quickly organising a second trial, if they were knocked out.

Some sides play three trials already, all play two, so at most this would be adding two extra matches to a sides pre-season, and if they are semis and finals of a knockout comp, with prizemoney for grabs, then surely the clubs wouldn't mind too much?

 

[Big Bunny]

I've always preferred the idea where eventually we would have 18 teams in the NRL, playing one full round, with none of those annoying repeat fixtures. 17 games in the regular NRL on top of a Challenge Cup played earlier in the season over 4-5 rounds and including PNG, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga.

 

[Leagueguy]

So long as the sponsorship $ covered the travel, accom etc and prize money.

I think it would. Say the top 8 worked like this:

-The top 4 teams from each competion are combined and seeded to form one 8
- Both comps run for the same time before merging.
- If the finals were like the Macentire system then theoritcally there would be 4 away teams in week one, 2 away teams in week two, 2 away teams in week 3 and 1 in week 4. Therefore there is a maximum of 9 instances when teams would have to travel interstate. However depending on seedings this may be less because two qld or two nsw teams could play one another and niether teams would be travelling
- I'm sure they could fit the bill these select teams travelling between nsw and qld over a 4 week period.

The other problem would be the amount of eligable PL and Qld cup players that are actually playing NRL get dropped on purpose if they were no chance of making the semi's. If it proved a success then there would be other problems due to rorting the system in some way.

I think this would happen now if it was going to be a problem. NRL teams have feeder clubs and premiers league teams still in contention at the end of the season when they are no longer able to make the finals. However they don't drop back players because there number 1 priority is to win NRL games and build for next season.