Push for Origin-style match on final day
QUEENSLAND Rugby League officials will push to be included in the biggest day on the sport's calendar -- the NRL grand final.
Talks have taken place for the Queensland Cup winner to play the NSW Cup victor in a second-tier championship match on grand final day.
While a formal proposal has not yet been put to the ARL Commission, Intrust Super Cup (Queensland Cup) competition manager Jamie O'Connor said preliminary talks on a national approach to second-tier football had been held.
"One of the items that's been raised is the NSW Cup winner playing the Intrust Super Cup winner on national grand final day," O'Connor said. "There's a lot of people that support it, we certainly support it from a Queensland Rugby League perspective, we'd love to see that take place."
But O'Connor said any crossover should not diminish the identity of the Queensland Cup.
With 12 teams from Cairns to Tweed Heads, the QRL is not pushing for its successful competition to be replaced by a national second-tier competition.
"We're very conscious we don't lose our identity of what the Cup is. It's got a lot of tradition around it," O'Connor said.
"We'd probably be opposed to a whole of national second-tier competition if it meant the loss of the Queensland Rugby League's marquee state-wide comp.
"I think we'd be quite a while away, if we were to, at all, ever go to a national second-tier competition.
"If we could get the national grand final day with the two (state) Cup winners filtering through, I don't think there'd be any reason why we'd need to go to a national second-tier competition."
While just over 100,000 people tuned in to Channel 9 Brisbane's grand final telecast to watch Wynnum Manly beat Redcliffe in front of a crowd of almost 10,000 at Suncorp Stadium to lift the Cup on Sunday, NSW Cup finalists Newtown and Balmain will meet in a curtain-raiser to the NRL final this weekend.
But O'Connor hopes Queensland will also have a guaranteed place at the table in the future.
"If we're serious about having the Commission come in and we're after true independence and we're looking for a national grand final day in a National Rugby League ... it would make sense that you have a national second-tier competition that was equally represented on grand final day," O'Connor said.
"That would be a fantastic result for us. To go in off the back of what happened at Suncorp Stadium (at the weekend) and have Wynnum to go forward as our premiers to challenge the NSW premiers down there, I think would be a real shot in the arm for football."
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