It is said that the more things change, the more they stay the same, and never has that mantra been more applicable to a sporting event than in rugby league’s World Club Challenge. Of the 26 previous versions of the event to determine the best club side in the sport – dating back to the inaugural unofficial clash between Sydney and St Helens in 1976 – there have been more tweaks and changes than most league fans would care to remember.
From the ill-fated, expanded 1997 edition, in which British clubs performed disastrously amid millions of dollars’ worth of losses, to the short-lived World Club Series of recent seasons, the format has never discovered its panacea. The purported disparity between the sport’s two elite competitions, Super League and the NRL, has long been cited as the reason why the competition has never properly taken off but, as Wigan prepare to host the Roosters on Sunday in the latest instalment, just how big is the gap between the two?
“I think the standard over here is currently higher than it’s been for a long time,” says the current St Helens coach and former Sydney assistant, Justin Holbrook. “You can see that from the rule changes Super League has made to try to align itself with the NRL. Whether we’re catching the NRL up … we’ll find out on Sunday.”
Perhaps we will. In the past decade only two British sides – Leeds in 2012 and Wigan in 2017 – have beaten the NRL’s best. But with Super League’s recent rule changes designed to close the gap on the NRL and speed the game up – plus England’s progression at international level – is the gap already being narrowed?
“We as a competition have to get to a standard of play that threatens the NRL, I totally get that,” admits the former Great Britain winger turned TV presenter Brian Carney. “We’re going the right way now. We’re doing things that should have been done a long time ago but you won’t see instant results. You wouldn’t have kicked Italy out of the Six Nations a few years ago simply because they were struggling – now they’re competing.”
Ellery Hanley, the former Lions captain, thinks the number of Englishmen playing successfully in Australia has helped. “Guys like Elliott Whitehead and Sam Burgess, seasoned England internationals, going there and playing in the NRL have eliminated the fear factor for Englishmen and changed perceptions of our players and their abilities,” he says.
“It was deemed that our boys wouldn’t be able to cope with their standard but I think England getting to the World Cup final shows that Super League is almost level with them now.”
Paul Sculthorpe, the former Great Britain captain, is adamant the elite in both leagues are at a similar level. “Their player pool is bigger than ours but our best against their best, there’s not a lot in it – the World Cup proved that,” he says. “Some of our lads are now rightly considered to be the best players in the world.”
But what about the World Club Challenge itself? With the Super League chief executive, Robert Elstone, admitting major changes could be afoot for the event’s format and scheduling next year, just where does it fit into the domestic calendar? “I think it would be a disgrace if this game ever disappeared,” Carney says. “Other sports would kill for a clash that pits its best club sides from different hemispheres against one another. If we lose it through the apathy of the NRL’s approach to it, that is a disgrace.”
Carney is not alone in his views; it is widely acknowledged in the northern hemisphere that the tournament is too often viewed as a warm-up event for the Australians, prompting Elstone’s desire to shake it up.
That attitude, however, cannot be attributed to this weekend’s visiting NRL champions. “If you love the game of league, then you must respect it on all levels – including the World Club Challenge,” says the Sydney coach, Trent Robinson, who previously coached in Super League with Catalans. “I’d like to see a bit more structure to it so you can look long-term, because you have discussions every year about where and when it’s being played.
“But we want to showcase rugby league. If we’re going to invest time travelling to England, then we will respect the heritage and quality of the game in this country.”
Robinson’s attitude is commendable, and perhaps indicative of a growing Antipodean shift towards Super League, given the influx of players to the competition this season in the peaks of their careers, rather than the usual annual arrival of those seeking one last payday in Europe.
“I think all the high-profile imports who’ve arrived this year would give our competition a thumbs-up and are pleasantly surprised where we are,” Elstone says. “Increasing the intensity and pace of our game has been a priority but we have to aspire for our competitions, including this one, to look different in the future. We own such a fantastic property in the World Club Challenge, which arguably hasn’t been subscribed to properly by certain people in the past. We have to change that.”
Carney agrees. “The game needs to back this concept. We’ve only got two elite professional competitions in the world and not much else, so if you are culpable for letting this event die, you cannot love rugby league.”
League, one suspects, will not let that happen. But in a theme not too dissimilar from Super League’s constant league structure changes of recent seasons, perhaps the World Club Challenge will never get the respect it deserves until Super League proves it is on the NRL’s level this year and beyond.
