The 1997 World Club Championship was an expansion of the

World Club Challenge The World Club Challenge is an annual rugby league competition between the winners of the Australasian National Rugby League (NRL) and the European Super League, for the de facto club world championship of the sport. The first such match was pl ...

concept by

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of wh ...

. The rugby competition was restructured to include all 22 clubs from the Australasian

and the

championships and was known as the Visa World Club Championship due to sponsorship. As it was contested over 6 rounds in 2 hemispheres, with A$1,000,000 prize money (GBP 640,000), the competition was prohibitively expensive to stage. This coupled with the poor ratings and attendances that were achieved both in Australia and Europe reportedly resulted in a loss over $5,000,000, and the World Club Challenge was not staged again for a number of years. No British teams progressed further than the quarter finals, with two Australian teams reaching the final (played at the Ericsson Stadium in

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

, New Zealand): the dominant

Brisbane Broncos The Brisbane Broncos Rugby League Football Club Ltd., commonly referred to as the Broncos, is an Australian professional rugby league football club based in Brisbane, Queensland. Founded in April 1987, the Broncos play in Australia's elite com ...

club and the ill-fated

Hunter Mariners The Hunter Mariners were an Australian professional rugby league club based in the Hunter Region's largest city, Newcastle. Hunter was formed in mid-1995 and was later disbanded at the end of 1997. The club was formed because of the Super Leag ...

1997 tournament tables

The Australasian and European teams were each divided into two pools for the 1997 World Club Challenge. Each pool had six teams, with the exception of Australasia B, which had the two lowest placed

-aligned teams and the two newly formed teams: the Hunter Mariners and the Adelaide Rams. The finals series was contested between the top three teams in Australasia Pool A and Europe Pool A, and the top team from Australasia Pool B and Europe Pool B.

Australian Super League

Pool A Pool B

Super League

Pool A Pool B

Matches

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3

Round 4

Round 5

Round 6

Playoffs

Quarter-finals

Semi-finals

Final

In their only year of existence, this would be the only Final that the Hunter Mariners would appear in.

Teams

Match Details

Aftermath

The dominance of the Australasian sides in the competition led to the

Rugby Football League The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England, and until 1995 for the whole British Isles. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisati ...

appointing Joe Lydon to head a commission to provide an explanation. The general conclusion was that the Australian sides were no more skillful than the European teams, the main difference as it had been in international football since the late 1970s, was fitness, something that they were working on by the time of the season ending

Super League Test series Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter / player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard butt ...

between the Super League

Australian Australian(s) may refer to: Australia * Australia, a country * Australians, citizens of the Commonwealth of Australia ** European Australians ** Anglo-Celtic Australians, Australians descended principally from British colonists ** Aboriginal Au ...

s and the

Great Britain Lions The Great Britain national rugby league team represents Great Britain in rugby league. Administered by the Rugby Football League (RFL), the team is nicknamed The Lions. For most of the 20th century, the Great Britain team toured overseas, ...

in England in November.

References

External links

"Global show hits Knowsley Road" - article by Dave Hadfield at ''The Independent'' (London), June 6, 1997
* ttp://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_19971018/ai_n14138360 "World Club Championship Final - Broncos' early burst" - article by Dave Hadfield at ''The Independent'' (London), Oct 18, 1997br>1997 World Club Challenge at superleague.co.uk
{{1997 in rugby league Brisbane Broncos

World Club Challenge