WARRINGTON Wolves will take part in the newly-expanded World Club Series despite last night's loss.

They will join Wigan and St Helens in facing NRL opposition in this country next February.

The winners of next Saturday's Grand Final between Wigan and Saints will contest for the World Club Challenge title with the Australian champions, to be decided between South Sydney Rabbitohs and Canterbury Bulldogs on Sunday morning, while two other ties between leading sides from the European and Australasian competitions will complete a weekend series to determine the winning hemisphere.

Confusion reigned overnight as to whether it would be Warrington Wolves or Huddersfield Giants taking up the challenge along with Wigan and Saints, who automatically qualify as Grand Finalists.

The third place goes to the League Leaders' Shield winners, or, if they are also Grand Finalists as is the case with Saints, the league's third-ranked team.

Giants finished third on the Super League table, but Wolves proved themselves as third-best in the play-offs (losing to Wigan by 4pts in comparison to Catalan falling to Saints by 18pts). And it has come to light today that it is the re-evalued ranking from the play-offs rather than from the Super League table which forms the criteria for World Club Series qualification.

The weekend of Anglo-Australian action will see matches taking place on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from February 20-22.

South Sydney and Brisbane Broncos have been named as two of the NRL representatives for the series, with Canterbury Bulldogs set to be confirmed after playing Souths in Sunday's Grand Final in Sydney.

Warrington Wolves owner Simon Moran, who with Gary Hetherington (Leeds Rhinos) and Ian Lenagan (Wigan), was on Super League's working party that came up with the idea of expanding the World Club concept.