World Club Series

The Dacia World Club Series is an annual rugby league football competition played between the clubs from the Australasian National Rugby League and the European Super League. The competition includes the World Club Challenge, a single match played between the two champions of each league.

The first series was played in 2015, while the World Club Challenge was first contested in 1976.

History

1976–2014: World Club Challenge

The competition began unofficially in 1976 as a match between Sydney's Eastern Suburbs and Premiership winners St Helens. In 1987, another unofficial match took place when Wigan chairman Maurice Lindsay invited Manly-Warringah to Central Park.

The first official World Club Challenge was between Widnes and Canberra in 1989. Three further matches, each involving Wigan, were staged in the early 1990s with the 1994 match being staged in Australia. This would be the last time for 20 years that this would happen.

If only we could see a genuine contest between Wigan and Brisbane – a World Club final. Alas, it will never happen. Oh sure, a game might be arranged, but logistics dictate that one side would be out of season, rusty or tired, and away from home.

1997 World Club Championship

The 1997 World Club Championship was an expansion of the World Club Challenge concept by Super League. The competition was restructured to include all 22 clubs from the Australasian and European Super League 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, New Zealand): the dominant Brisbane Broncos club and the ill-fated Hunter Mariners.

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 Super League-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.

1994 World Club Challenge

The 1994 MMI World Club Challenge was a replay of the 1992 World Club Challenge, with 1993–94 Rugby Football League season champions Wigan facing the 1993 NSWRL season premiers, the Brisbane Broncos, this time in Australia. Wigan were clearly the dominant club in the English game, having won the previous four consecutive Rugby Football League Championships and Challenge Cup tournaments. The Broncos, having won consecutive premierships in 1992 and 1993 were the dominant team in the Australian game at the time. In the World Club Challenge, this time played unusually late in the year, Wigan were looking to get revenge for their loss against Brisbane in the previous encounter and got out to a strong first half lead. The English club then survived a second half come back from Brisbane to take the match, cementing their position as the world's dominant rugby league club of the period.

Television coverage was provided by Australia's Nine Network with the game shown live in Great Britain by Sky Sports. Commentary was provided by Ray Warren, Peter Sterling and Wigan's former coach John Monie.