Is this not the perfect excuse to tweak the format?



No international tournament this year, so send the 2012 GF winners to Aus to play their champions in late October.

There is no international rugby league series / tournament this year?



If true, you can see why we are treated as such a joke by certain sections of the media.

There is no internationals being played by the Southern Hemisphere as they want a 'break' according to the NRL. We England will be having matches and we should 100% not have the wcc at the end of this year.

As sson as the NRL clubs learn how much $ they have to guarantee they back right away. Manly could hardly get any fans to a semi on the other side of Sydney so no wonder they weren't confident of hosting a WCC!



As said don't blame the Sl clubs for being more professional and better prepared.

What's funny about that?

cracking game

The Aussies are in pre-season. Perhaps they should bring their whole season forward to accommodate this one game. Or maybe they should play 2-3 warm up matches before it, risking injury to their players and disrupting their preparation for the NRL season.



Until the odds are even, this 'trophy' will always be meaningless. That's not a dig at Leeds, or any other club, but anyone who believes that the SL sides' dominance of this 'competition' is a true reflection of the relative strength of our club sides needs their head testing.

As would I. But this isn't about that. My comments would be exactly the same whoever was contesting the game.

So play the game in april

Whilst I understand your point I'd say that the Aussies choose not to even the odds rather than them being deliberately stacked against them. They choose to only come over a week beforehand, they choose to not play it in Australia despite several English clubs saying theyd be happy to play it over there, and they choose not to prepare with a few warm-up games.



Similar could be said for the international setup, that the odds are stacked in the Aussies & Kiwis favour. The schedule of matches (especially when held down under), the refs & reffing interpretations, and the fact the top British players usually play more games during the season than the Aussies or Kiwis. Yet when Australia or New Zealand win an international we don't say it's not representative.

Both teams had dominant periods of the game. Forme, Manly actually looked the more threatening but spilled possession too easily.



Leeds were more efficient with the ball but were aided by two fairly close calls in the Webb bomb spill and subsequent forward pass which provided the score to make it 20-12. Had those been at the other end, I doubt there would be any Leeds fans which would have been happy.