Thursday 2 November 2017 15:19, UK
A full-blown World Club Series is set to take place in 2018 after all, but by more accident than design.
Super League champions Leeds and Grand Final runners-up Castleford qualified for what was meant to be a two-match series, but that was thrown into doubt when their opposite numbers Melbourne and North Queensland showed little interest in the event.
In fact, the two NRL Grand Finalists showed such little disregard for the series that they arranged a pre-season friendly between themselves on the date of proposed World Club Challenge, February 23, in Brisbane and have started selling tickets.
Leeds chief executive Gary Hetherington, who had provisionally booked Elland Road for the fixture, then offered to take his team to play the match in Melbourne, and Press Association Sport understands unofficial talks came to fruition during his trip to Australia for the World Cup.
The game, still to be ratified by the NRL and Super League, is set to take place a week earlier, on the same weekend that Hull FC and Wigan have already arranged to play matches against NRL opposition.
Hull will take on St George Illawarra Dragons and Wigan are playing South Sydney Rabbitohs in a double header at Sydney's ANZ Stadium on Sunday, February 17, a week after playing each other in a Round two fixture in Wollongong - the first Super League fixture to be played outside Europe.
Super League fixture planners have set aside a blank weekend on February 17-18 to accommodate the World Club Series, with the exception of the four clubs involved in the fifth round of the Challenge Cup who are being allowed to bring forward their Round 12 fixtures.
Brisbane Broncos and Sydney Roosters are the only Australian clubs to have hosted the World Club Challenge, which was first contested in 1976 and became a regular fixture in the calendar 24 years later when Melbourne beat St Helens at Wigan.
The concept was expanded into a three-match series in 2015.
Wigan are the current holders of the World Club Challenge following their victory over Cronulla at the DW Stadium in February.
