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Message: [QUOTE="Coxy, post: 2294065, member: 1764"] Essentially it was intended to be a new competition, privately owned and run, with licenses offered, applied for and granted to teams who fit the bill. More money for players, international competition focussed etc etc. They wanted a 12 team elite competition for the national comp, with a secondary competition with up to 20 teams that was a second tier. The catch was Pay tv rights would be exclusive to Foxtel. To do it they wanted the ARL to partner with them and follow their "vision". The ARL said "sorry, we already have a rights agreement with Optus Vision (Kerry Packer)" and so refused to get involved. News Limited then decided "well **** ya, we'll do it ourselves" and went around (not so) secretly signing up players and clubs...the idea being if they got most players for a club on board then the club would follow, which it did in most cases. Canberra were first to sign, then Cronulla, then Brisbane, Penrith, Western Reds, Auckland Warriors, NQ Cowboys and Canterbury. They were on the brink of signing Newcastle when the ARL sent heavies up to put the pressure on Harragon, Johns et al to sign with them, which they did...so the club flipped back to the ARL. Sadly Super League didn't manage to sign more than those 8 clubs, the rest pledged loyalty to the ARL. Lots of other ugly stuff went on in the background, and a big, long, ugly court battle. Super League eventually decided to have a 10 team comp, and so formed Adelaide Rams and Hunter Mariners to make up the numbers. They introduced some new rules - zero tackle, scorer kicks off (which didn't last) and completely eliminated holding down - fast play the balls was the name of the game. They introduced a very cool concept, which was the World Club Challenge which was played in 2 preliminary stages, here and over there, and then a finals series, in which all English and all Australian clubs were involved (2 groups of each, playing against eachother etc). Unfortunately the Poms were so bad it was a disaster - Australian teams won all but 1 game...Broncos beat Halifax 76-0 at ANZ Stadium. So while very uncompetitive, the notion of a proper competition between Australian and British clubs was a good concept, much better than the one off preseason junket we have now. So ultimately what WAS super league wasn't what they WANTED it to be. Had we got it, well, the game would be very different now. [/QUOTE]

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