Country Rugby League boss Terry Quinn has warned the NRL it faces a backlash from the code's heartland if it goes ahead with proposals to scrap the annual City-Country clash in 2013.

Removing the City-Country game is among a raft of proposals to be tabled at Thursday's landmark summit in Sydney, where chairmen and chief executives from all 16 NRL clubs will join league chief David Gallop to discuss the future of the game.

Gallop will give club bosses an update on the status of the independent commission - with official invitations to the eight nominated commissioners reportedly in the mail - while the new broadcasting rights deal and scheduling will also be high on the agenda.

And the City-Country game - which has been part of the rugby league calendar since 1930 - is on the endangered list, with clubs desperate to reduce the threat of player burnout.

Asked about the prospect of followers in the bush turning their back on the game if the fixture was scrapped, Quinn said: "Absolutely, there'll be a huge backlash.

"We're not very happy about it at all. It just takes away a lot of the interest from the bush and displaying our rep players that have come through the NRL."

The game is believed to be safe for 2012, with the likelihood it will be played on a standalone weekend of representative football, with the mid-year Test between Australia and New Zealand on the Friday night and City-Country on the Sunday.

Beyond that, however, it appears the only mid-year representative fixtures would be State of Origin.

The NRL seems unwilling to have Origin as a stand-alone games, the preferred option being to play the three matches on Monday nights, lessening the impact on players having to back up the following weekend.

But players would still be stood down from NRL matches preceding each Origin, a situation deemed unsatisfactory by Rugby League Players' Association boss David Garnsey.

"The big concern that I have is that we have two fantastic competitions ... the State of Origin and the NRL competition which people love, yet they compete with each other," Garnsey told AAP.

"We really should be using both to compete with other codes.

"You get to the Origin period and you get less people at NRL games because the quality drops because the top players aren't there ... it cannibalises (the NRL competition)."

The interests of broadcasters are tipped to win out, however, with the NRL chasing a $1 billion pay deal for the new television deal which is due to take effect in 2013.

Clubs are anxious to learn what their slice of the pie will be under the new deal, with Gallop having stated his preference for the annual grant to move closer to parity with the salary cap, which currently stands at $4.3 million.

The NRL handed out $3.65 million to clubs this year, with that figure to rise to $3.75 million next year, but Garnsey said it is imperative any injection of funds is passed onto the players.

"I don't know that we're too concerned with what the grant is - we're focused on the salary cap and whether that's adequate," Garnsey said.

"It's difficult to talk with any sort of precision about that because we don't know how much money's going to come in, and we don't know when, and the NRL doesn't either."

Club bosses are hoping to have a better idea on their budgets for 2013 and beyond.

"There's long-term planning needed around player contracts and that's obviously the key revenue item," Wests Tigers' chief executive Stephen Humphreys said.

"A good meaty conversation is timely.

"I'd imagine we'll get a range of possibilities."

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