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 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?
Continue reading...from The Guardian http://bit.ly/2TQeEKV
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