❏ Weeks one to 11 of the season give us 11 matches of home-and-away club football. After round 11 the NRL competition goes on a one-month holiday. Round 11 matches are completed on the Friday and Saturdays of that weekend. The Origin teams are announced at a lavish function on the Sunday; and the NSW and Queensland teams have a week to get ready for Origin I.
❏ Over the next four weekends we will stage three Saturday night State of Origin matches; followed by a Test between Australia and New Zealand on the final weekend. I would like the National Youth Competition to mirror this representative program and be played as curtain-raisers to the senior Origin and Test program.
❏ While the rep footy is being played, the 16 NRL club teams compete in a mid-season knockout competition. There will be eight games in week one, four in week two, two semi-finals in week three, and a final in week four, the same weekend of the Australia/New Zealand Test. Let's give the winner of the ''Mid-Season Cup'' $2 million - all clubs earn extra cash along the way depending on how far they go. No Origin or Test star can play in the knockout comp on the same weekend.
The Mid-Season Cup represents a new TV product for the game to sell. It can easily be simulcast on free-to-air and pay-TV. All these games could be played on Sundays and Mondays - afternoon and nights. It gives the teams down the bottom of the ladder after 11 rounds a chance to salvage something from the season.
Teams knocked out in round one do face the prospect of three spare weekends without football. Of course, they could play their players back in the second-tier NSW and QLD Cups to give that competition some much-needed profile - or they could choose to use the break in other ways. Others knocked out in weeks two and three can arrange their spare time as they please. The two teams that go through to the final won't mind the extra games because of the money on offer. This competition solves the problem of stand-alone Origin and Tests as it gives us competitive football on the Sundays after Origin and Tests.
It gives the lesser teams a chance to win something big while the top teams play without rep stars. Of course the top teams have their eyes on the bigger games in September.
Once this month of rep football and mid-season knockout ends, we continue on with the last 11 rounds. So, after 26 weeks, we have 22 weeks of home-and-away club football; a four-week Origin and Test period where no rep player has to back up for his club in the same weekend; a new mid-season knockout comp with huge prizemoney and new TV earnings; and no club has had to play a vital premiership match without rep stars on Origin or Test duty.
The most any player will play during this period is 26 games of rugby league - but always with an adequate recovery period. The vast majority of players will have enjoyed some period of rest.
The clubs all get 11 home games instead of the current 12 - however, there are two important points here. These 11 home games will not be reduced in quality due to players backing up or unavailable through rep football. Eight clubs will get a further home game in the first round of the mid-season knockout.
If we reverse the draw for this first round of the knockout comp the following season, then teams will get 23 better-quality home games in a two-year period instead of the current 24 home games, 14 of which are now reduced in quality and standard due to rep players backing up or unavailable. It's a no-brainer that the clubs are hugely better off.
As for the end-of-season international rep football; I suggest a four-year rotation of the following;
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Year 1:A return of the Kangaroos tour of England.
While this is being played in England, we hold a Pacific Nations Cup in Australia involving New Zealand Maori, Fiji, Samoa, Tonga, PNG, NZ, and we include emerging NSW and Queensland teams in this competition. This gives us another TV product.
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Year 2:A three-match Test series against New Zealand.
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Year 3:A tri-series between Australia, New Zealand and Great Britain in England. In Australia we could hold another Pacific Islands Cup, but this time without the NSW and QLD teams.
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Year 4:World Cup.
In fact dangle that to most sports clubs in this country and they would be drooling.
