Twenty-five years on, the World Club Championship remains one of rugby league’s most bizarre and misguided ideas
magine sending Toulouse, Wakefield, Salford and Hull KR to Australia to play a series of games against Penrith, Melbourne, South Sydney and Parramatta. It would be madness, wouldn’t it? Well, that’s what happened 25 years ago this week, in what was described by Souths icon George Piggins as “one of the greatest farces ever perpetrated upon the Australian sporting public”. Harsh but probably true.
Yes, but what a ludicrous disaster. With Visa putting up $1m for the winners and $500,000 for the runners-up, everyone started off keen. The bookies, however, knew what was going to happen: the four favourites were Australian teams; the five 1,000-1 outsiders were from Europe. With only 10 teams in Australia’s breakaway Super League, they needed more games.
The English and French sides lost nine of the first round of games and 52 out of the 60 international meetings. Five Australian teams went unbeaten in the group stage and two only lost once. In contrast, Wigan were the only European side to win twice.
The World Club Championship lasted for four eventful months, but the format was dead long before Brisbane beat the Mariners – playing in their last game – in the final in Auckland in October 1997. It was three years before it was resurrected in its original format: a one-off annual clash between Australian and English champions.
Twenty-five years on, only half of the European clubs – and two of the stadiums – remain in Super League. WCC stages Central Park, Knowsley Road, The Willows, Wilderspool and Thrum Hall have long since been dismantled.has ballooned commercially, meaning a glorified friendly against the English champions holds little appeal to many club CEOs. But, put in the hands of Super League’s new partners IMG, it could at least become an attention-grabbing, revenue-driving date in the sporting calendar.