The WC Festival

I was thinking about how in ice hockey many top NHL players don't go to their WC. They still have it anyway and it's popular. It also means without the best always there, the winner is more variable. So I thought about a RL WC festival held a year before a WC, a comp where all the players with NRL or SL contracts are excluded. A WC for the semi pros and amateurs. 

Australia would be made up of Qld and NSW comp players, home nations sides from the Championship and the French from Elite 1. It would be a great leveler and would give nations without access to full pro players a chance do better. One sided games would be far fewer yet the standard would still be entertaining. I'd watch it and enjoy many of the games more than at a full WC. 

For countries like Greece - that sent a side over to this WC to get mercilessly walloped three times - a chance to compete and gain greater benefit from the experience. It would motivate people in emerging RL nations to take up the sport and hopefully get picked to represent their nation. Any profit would be shared among the nations involved. 

Pie in the sky I know but I like putting out ideas to challenge the status quo. RL needs to do more to encourage the sport in 'emerging' nations and to encourage international RL generally. We need to try different things otherwise we'll keep getting what we already have, a few good nations and a bunch of stragglers totally outclassed.

Pic: ERL.Ireland v Serbia.