Enlarge imageBy Julian Linden
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rugby league's centenary World Cup kicks off in Australia this weekend with a mixture of misty-eyed pride over the sport's colourful past and anxiety about its future.
Ten countries will compete in the four-week tournament but only three, Australia, England and New Zealand, have any real chance of winning the title.
Even England and New Zealand are regarded as relative outsiders against the Australians, who have won nine of the previous 12 World Cups dating back to 1954, including the last six.
Packed with talented players from Australia's National Rugby League (NRL), one of two fully-fledged professional leagues in the world, the Kangaroos are overwhelming favourites to win the title on home soil.
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"We know that not all the time the favourites win," the Australian captain Darren Lockyer protested.
"We realise that it is going to be tough and that there's absolutely no room for complacency from us."
The tournament starts in Townsville on Saturday and ends on November 22 with the final in Brisbane.
UNUSUAL FORMAT
The gap between the competing teams is so wide that the organisers have resorted to running a two-tiered competition to avoid one-sided matches.
The four strongest teams, Australia, England, New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, are in a single pool offering three direct places to the semi-finals.
The remaining six teams, Scotland, Ireland, France, Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, are split into two groups of three, with just one semi-final berth up for grabs.
The unusual format is in keeping with an unorthodox sport that began as a protest against the establishment.
The game originated in Britain in 1895 when a group of northern England clubs left the amateur Rugby Football Union to set up their own professional code because of a dispute over payments for working-class players.
It was not until 1908 that rugby league was established in Australia, again following a dispute over match payments, and the first international tour took place that same year when the Australians visited New Zealand and Britain.
Two years later, the British toured Australia and their rivalry was off and running.
League officials immediately changed some of the rules they had borrowed from rugby union, to make the game faster and more exciting, and poached some of the best players.
The sport was an instant success with crowds drawn to the gladiatorial nature of the game. Rugby league players are among the fittest in professional sport but wear little of the protection used by American footballers despite the often brutal defensive play.
BODY BLOWS
Crowds of more than 70,000 would turn out to watch teams play during the Great Depression, although the rugged, 13-man-a-side sport never grabbed the entire world's attention.
It was unchallenged as the most popular football code in the eastern Australia states of New South Wales and Queensland and became hugely popular in parts of northern England but the passion was shared only by a few small pockets in France and New Zealand.
Rugby league's popularity in its traditional strongholds was tested in the mid-1990s when it was struck by two body blows. The first came when the code was split in two by the "Super League" war -- a failed but damaging attempt by Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to take over the sport.
The second came when rugby union announced in 1995 that it was turning professional after signing a big television deal with News Corporation.
Australia and Britain ceased their international tours between 1994 and 2001 although World Cups were held in Britain in 1995 and 2000.
It has been eight years since the last World Cup was played but officials have already agreed to stage the next one in 2013, hoping this tournament will help to launch another golden era for the sport.
"This is going to be a professionally run tournament and we haven't cut corners on costs because we're showcasing our sport to 126 countries around the world," said tournament director Colin Love.
"This event is going to become a major international sporting event in a very short space of time."
(Editing by Clare Fallon)
