A Proposal....... Australian
Challenge Cup - Editorial

I had a thought........ Would an English Challenge Cup competition work in Australia?.

The clubs will be the first grade teams, or a mixture of colts (under 19?s) to A Grade players from all around Australia and the 15 NRL teams also involving 3 Papua New Guinea teams and 5 NZ Bartercard teams and the. The competition will give the players in league clubs in the Emerging States (W.A, Victoria, S.A, N.T and Tasmania) a chance to show what they can do and hopefully can get signed by NRL clubs. Also adding to that, many unspotted talent (which I believe that there are heaps of unseen talent running around in leagues accross the country) will be finally seen.

The money from this tournament can go to the development of the Emerging States clubs and competitions, also towards International League.

For this to work, firstly the NRL season will have to shorten from the 26 Rounds that it is currently at, to no more than 18 Rounds with a top 6 finals series and possibly start about a week earlier.

The full competition will consist of 101 Clubs, including the NRL teams

Here is my format of an Australian Challenge Cup, The same format as the current English one:

Preliminary Round:

22 Teams made up of amateur clubs around Australia battle it out with the winners progressing to Round 1 of the tournament.

Round 1: The 11 winners of the Preliminary Round join 45 other clubs from around Australia and 2 PNG Clubs, in a knock out match.

Round 2: The 28 winners of Round 1 play each other again plus the addition of one more Australian club and one NZ club so now there is just 15 teams left from the first round.

Round 3: Four more NZ clubs enter the competition, 1 more PNG side and 5 Jim Beam Cup & 5 QLD Cup clubs join the 15 winners of Round 2. Knock out again.

Round 4: The 15 winners of Round 3 are joined by the 15 NRL clubs.

Round 5: The 16 winners of Round 4 battle it out.

Round 6: Now just 8 teams left.

Semi Finals: Final 4 Teams

Final: Winners of Semi Finals.