I've just had a world club challenge idea. Why not hold the WCC between the two league leaders between the end of the league season and the playoffs?

Advantages:
1) You get two of this years champion teams, not last years champion team who all the players and the coach has subsequently left, for example.
2) You get two teams about to hit peak performance, not an NRL warm up.
3) You don't get the problem of the European team training trying to hit peak form for the WCC, then struggling for the rest of the season having peaked too soon.
4) You don't get the problem if you have the WCC after the grand finals that all of the players have been on the lash all week and can't run back the 10 without chucking up.

Could you really see any team being prepared to fly halfway round the world before the start of their play-off campaign (ie the important part of the season)?

Ah yes, I forgot:

5) In the European system, the top 2 used to get a week off before they have to play, so they have time to recover. The NRL could just juggle their system around a bit. Or something.

The point of the WCC is that it's played between the SL and NRL champions. This is as daft as Damo's idea of deciding the chamions half way through the season.

That's the major disadvantage, yes. But the current WCC isn't really played for by the champions either- the team could have completely disbanded in the off-season. I think the Wests Tigers side that was beaten by Bradford was a shell of its former self.

At least the League Leaders' Shield is a champion of some sort (indeed there are folk who say it should be the championship proper).

Don't think this one has been thought through very well.

People really need to think about the negatives of an idea as well as the positives!

WCC should be played a week or fortnight after the two leagues respective grand finals.

Simple as that.

Correct.

Two weeks is the only way, because of each team's own post Grand Final celebrations, and because of the need to overcome the jet lag of the team that flies across the world on the Wednesday.

Nah. Club rugby switches off after the Grand Finals (some could say all rugby switches off by the amount of interest there is in the international game). They aren't called the Grand Semi-Finals- your WCC would either be a great event and detract from the grand finals, or more likely it would be a non-event that no one cared about.

Which would eat into the international calendar.

You win the SL to qualify for the WCC the year later. Just like in football. You qualify for the Champions League. And the winners of the Champions League qualify for the CWC after that. They aren't all in the same year.