East Coast Tiger said:
The administrators can't even organise it properly with several months between the GFs and the WCC, how are they going to go with two weeks between games? They'll only learn who's in it and where it could be played after the grand finals. That means problems with stadia, travel etc. Plus if it is aligned with the international season, there will be even more limitations on where it can be played.
For matches played in Australia I'd suggest the venue qualifications would be the same as the rules for hosting week 2 semi finals in this year's NRL - ie. home region. As for only knowing who'll be in it at two weeks notice that doesn't mean you can't allocate which hemisphere will host and book television crews, time slots, satellite time and start promotional build up for a specific date and time. And given that four weeks out, you'll know it'll be one of just four team's hosting the match and three week's out it'll be one of just two teams hosting, it's not like you don't have any notice which venues you should make preliminary bookings at. Again, I don't see why this is a problem. We manage to organize semi final venues at just one weeks notice, what's the difference?
As for rusty players, two of the best games I've seen have been WCC matches, 2001 Saints v Brisbane and 2005 Bulldogs v Leeds. On those occasions the sides didn't look unfit or out of practice. They were amazing games.
As was the '92 WCC played in November as part of an World Cup tour.
If anything there's more chance of players being unfit at the end of the season due to injury while many others will be booked in for surgery.
The fact that either side might be a different 17 from the one that won their respective grand finals doesn't matter. Chances are they'd be different in any case. The two clubs are still the respective premiers.
Note I didn't say GF winning teams or sides, I said squads. Sure there could be injuries but they still have the same squad to choose from that they've had throughout their premiership winning campaign. Established players from the existing 25 man squad coming in to replace any injuries are not going to impact the cohesion of the side nearly as much as new recruits that have had little or no game time to build combination and youngsters being blooded in first grade for the first time. But seriously, how many players will be unavailable thru injury just one match and a couple of weeks latter? If surgery could be pushed for the GF then it could be pushed for a couple extra weeks, but once the surgery is done no amount of pushing is going to get them ready to train and play again more quickly. In the pre-season such players who underwent surgery are likely to be even more under prepared or miss the match altogether than their comrades that could fully train over the off season. And again the loses thru injury are not going to weaken the side (who still managed to win a GF only two weeks beforehand!) anywhere near as much as players lost thru retirements and salary cap pressures. And that's before we come back to the fact that it is the pre-season and players have little or no game time under their belts. Dropped balls and bad passes abound. Occasionally we get lucky, but generally the whole pre-season concept is undermined by these problems. And it is not nearly the event it could be when played as part of the international post season on the back of the GF winning buzz by two teams in premiership winning form. That's something you really could market the crap out of.
Leigh.
