Australian Rugby League administrators have already shown their hand when it comes to the future of the Rugby League calendar. They have talked about expansion of the NRL club competition allowing for fewer rounds of the club competition which would result in having more games on offer for broadcasters. This is to ensure the sport gives broadcasters the same number of games to show for the club season, while having fewer rounds for them to show. Both of these things would balance each other out.
These extra free weeks would allow for more representative football.
Every year during the middle of the season we see New South Wales take on Queensland in the three game State Of Origin series. Now, lets just get one thing out of the way….the State Of Origin series makes SO, MUCH, MONEY! State Of Origin isn’t going anywhere, however what we may see is State Of Origin moved to stand alone representative weekends during the middle of the season. This could see Origin games played on Sunday evening once again, which is the best time for broadcasters. This is turn would make even more money for the game.
If that happens we would have Friday night and all day Saturday free for other representative games. This would open the door for Pacific nations to take centre stage ahead of the State Of Origin clash, and fill in a hole in the broadcasting schedule.
So, what would I like to see in place?
Well we want to see Samoa take on Tonga on a regular basis. We want to see New Zealand coming together mid season and having regular games while Papua New Guinea and Fiji would be better if they got regular games too.
So what if we did this…
Samoa should play Tonga in a three match series. Played on Saturday afternoon, one game in Auckland, one game in Western Sydney (Parramatta or Penrith), and the third match you could look to either play in Samoa or Tonga on a rotating basis, or sell the game to the highest bidding venue as we already do with the extra State Of Origin match.
The winner of the Samoa vs Tonga series could win the right to take on New Zealand in a match played at the end of each year after the club season has finished.
New Zealand, Fiji and Papua New Guinea could play games against each other during the representative rounds, but they need another opponent to step up. In this instance, I’d invite France over to be part of the representative rounds. That would allow all four teams to play each other once over the three weeks.
Why France?
France needs some help. They need to start getting regular international football against a higher class of competition. They need to know where the standard has been set for being competitive in international Rugby League. Playing in these representative games would be ideal for France, and help raise their profile in the game. It would help them develop their elite players, and the Super League competition isn’t going to suffer too much without the best French players available for three weeks.
All of this would give us an amazing amount of international football alongside the State Of Origin series, and I think that would be brilliant.
What do you think? Leave a comment below if you feel like you have a better idea of how a representative window should work.
