stratocaster
Juniors
- Messages
- 187
I suppose it's what you want those internationals to look like. England's not going to be touring in the middle of the comp.
At the moment with 17 team comp, with each club playing 24 games and 3 byes over 27 rounds, for 204 total.
With a 20 team comp, that would be 240 games total. Instead, give each club 2 more byes = 220 games per season - 16 more than now. But each club only play 22 games each season. So you reduce play work load.
With 5 byes, you can give most teams byes during 3 weeks of Origin e.g. 1 game each on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday, then State of Origin on the Sunday.
You can then also give them byes during 2-3 more rounds. In those rounds you can play the top 4 Pacific Cup games like Union's 6 Nations. Depending on who qualifies, just an example:
Week 1: AUS vs TON, NZ vs SAM
Week 2: AUS vs SAM, NZ vs TON
Week 3: AUS vs NZ, SAM vs TON
With two or three NRL games on during those rounds as well. Depending on how you schedule it, you might have some spare byes to give teams post or in between origin/internationals. But you're not shutting down the comp for standalone weekends.
So basically 90% of players would play 2 fewer games per season when all combined. 8% would play as much as what they're playing now. 2% might play 1 extra game, but only if they play all Origins and all Internationals, which is rare.
And because you have 5 byes - you can arrange it so clubs are only impacted directly by Origin/Pacific Cup once or twice.
The Grand Final then remains where it should be - on the October long weekend.
And after that in October you then play your World Cups, Ashes tournaments and if we're serious, rebuild the 3 game series between Australia vs New Zealand as an every four years tournament. Everything wraps up by the first or second week of November at the latest.
