AT THE END OF THE DAY | All Stars calls must be heard, and acted on in 2020

The NRL Nines is about a week away from being relaunched at Perth, where all 16 clubs will send teams to the other side of Australia, and whether or not the clubs, and players for that matter, want to take part is all anyone wants to know.

We'll get a pretty decent indication on just which clubs are keen for the Nines when squads are finalised in the coming days.

And so a little closer to home there's more player revolt.

Kurt Hancock has called to expand the Group 10 calendar to include an All Stars carnival over the course of the one weekend to celebrate both the outstanding Indigenous players in the Group and the influence the Pacific Island nations have on rugby league as a whole, not just in this area.

Those calls were heard much further west, although it's likely deaf ears in positions of power won't taken notice.

Wellington Cowboys premiership winning captain-coach Aidan Ryan lauded Hancock's vision and, almost just as quickly, hammered Group 11's shortsightedness for neglecting to even consider its revival for 2020.

Ryan isn't backing down though.

Taking the bone like only Mad Dog can, he's offered to facilitate the game and has indicated he'll be in contact with Will Ingram, from Cowra, to see what's worked in Group 10, or even potentially, line up a Group 11 and Group 11 Indigenous All Stars showdown.

All brilliant ideas. But who gets to make the final call?

It's negligent of the Group 11 board to simply say a game like the All Stars concept is "not on the agenda", as board member Paul Loxley was quoted as saying last week.

Loxley did go on to say "it's a great game and a great concept" but logistically he wasn't sure how, or when, the game could be played.

Group 11 is down to 12 games in a regular season after they rightly booted Westside from the 2020 competition.

It's not hard to find a spare weekend in a season when, including finals, the senior footy in the black and red group lasts just 16 weeks.

Group 11 should be doing all it can to continue to foster rugby league within its boarders.

Putting on a game that gives the indigenous community a chance to come together and celebrate their culture should be top of the list.

We saw in 2019 through Wellington's premiership triumph just how much rugby league means to these small towns in the west.

The Cowboys' snapping a drought that spanned way back to 1994, when the full-time whistle was blown in the 2019 grand final the whole community was brought together.

And for a place like Wellington, a community that's endured its fair share, probably more than its fair share, of back-handers from outsiders, a moment to celebrate was cleansing.

So why not put on more of them? Let's find more moments like that.

Hancock's vision to extend the concept to a carnival over the course of an entire weekend might be overkill, but at least the thought is there.

Sport, in any capacity, in its essence is the simplest way of bringing people together. Rural communities need that. Group 11 needs it. As does Group 10. And bush footy.

It would be a tremendous show of appreciation for rugby league in the country if the New South Wales Rugby League's first point of order as the governing body for the sport in the bush was to help facilitate All Stars concepts in every Group in the state.

Costs often throw up plenty of barriers, when really games like these should be void of any form of red tape and be treated for what they truly are - terrific ways for towns and communities to band together in extremely tough times.

The NSWRL could make that happen.

As they do the NSW Challenge Cup, kicking off this weekend. It'd be naive to say these challenge competitions are a waste of time.

That a knockout tournament of this ilk is run purely to boost the coffers of the already flush clubs east of the sandstone curtain.

Dubbo CYMS is the most successful side to take part in the Challenge Cup, having won the first crown with a thumping victory over Guildford. Country sides can compete. It's that simple.

But winning isn't everything.

Not when there's players crying out to be heard by their own governing bodies, simply asking for another game to be squeezed onto a very short calendar.

The Group 10 All Stars game will be played on the weekend of April 19. The Group 11 season proper isn't slated to start until the weekend after, April 25-26.

Is it just me, or does 10 weeks seem like enough time to get this done? And if so, why not play a Group 10 All Stars match on the same weekend as the Group 11 version, and potentially even at the same ground?

Rugby league at all levels has a terrible history of being far too reactive in its approach to running the game. Here's a chance to be a little proactive, even if it is with a few not-so-subtle nudges.

You can run pointless Nines tournaments, or even conduct 'official' trials, but when players and clubs and supporters sing out, like Hancock and Ryan have done, then you have to listen. It's that simple.