Yup, there will be a lot of grumbling Northern (geographical, not Bradford) fans who don't support the game then bemoan the lack of an attendance.

If we want international RL in this country to be successful (off the field) it is in our hands. Get to the game.

I think potentially this could be a disaster half empty stadium for the TV cameras. However that said, if marketed correctly as some have said should be aiming for at least 60k. And i personally would be more willing to attend wembley for the game as appose to say Hull.

The only way to stop it being a disaster is get our collective fingers out and go. Wembley is a fantastic stadium and we get to watch 2 fantastic top level international games.

Go watch it, get your mates to come, organise something through your amateur club. You will have a great time.

I'm going, let's fill the ground with 90000 baying british rugby league fans and scare the hell out of those aussies, bring your friends, it's a lot easier to sell internationals to non rugby league fans than those that go to games regularly

leeds got nearly fourty thousand for a WCC, wigan got over 20 thousand, combine those and we are well on the way! bit strange that we still dont know if or when the game will be at wembley, much easier to plan for it that way. I want to buy my tickets now

although i'm sure there will be plenty of excuses banded out, kickoff at wrong time, live on tv, too far to go, too expensive, england will lose what's the point etc

Massive disaster waiting to happen! It will look terrible on TV!

I also believe Wembley should be for cup finals only, not a run of the mill Rugby League international!

And please, Wembley stadium was so last Sunday!

We're trying to get a coach load together from Nottm

What date is this likely to be?

Would be pretty inspirational if we all just decided to really, REALLY go for it. Market the game ourselves, really get a push on making up numbers.

I'd be impressed if we managed to fill Wembley. It wouldn't do the game that we all love any harm whatsoever either.

Until next year of course, when they hire Wembley again and only 1 man and his dog (or sheep, Sorry!!) turn up.

Slight problem with that theory...

I reckon 50k of said 60k fans were within a £2 bus ride to the stadiums. Theres no reason why it cant be marketed down there though and they get a load of locals. Also, why not give a load of tickets away to London School children if they are struggling. Not only will it start to fill the stadium but these kids may actually like the sport.

Wembley always makes the headlines in the papers with it being the national stadium, so the two games will get far more coverage than they would do normally.

Lets fill the place, make some noise about it being filled and then build on that success for the 2013 World Cup.


How much does it cost to charter a train? Run a couple from Manchester and Leeds, and reach out to absolutely everyone that has ever expressed an interest in the sport before. Affordable tickets and affordable travel are the two key elements to having 90 000 rather than 40 000 people there. Someone at Red Hall seems to have gotten their act together recently so hopefully this will be sorted and the Wembley Double Header will be a success.

NatEx do coaches from every major city on Event days. Its about £30 return which isnt bad.

You could probably make it free admission and transport and still struggle to more than half fill it, more's the pity.

What the RFL need is someone like Musa Kusa in charge of promoting the event. A redeemable voucher handed out to everyone entering the game prior to kick-off one, exchanged for £20 to everyone leaving the stadium at the end of game two, job done.

If that is to be the case then the obvious question is why?

Wembley was full for the Challenge Cup, and the double header is clearly more appealing to more fans overall, so why cant the same be achieved for the 4 Nations as was for the Challenge Cup?

Run of the mill International? This is England vs Australia it should be the pinnacle for every player and fan, its attitudes like this why the International game is struggling and part of the reason why some RL players convert to Union, Players want to play in front of full houses not empty stadiums. If we all pull our fingers out we can make this work!

Ignore the fat Cumbrian. He was just trying to get in the fact that his soccer team won a Mickey Mouse cup game there at the weekend.

Working in the smog at the moment and I note Quins are giving away 5,000 tickets for their game against Cas to Standard readers.

Yup, couldn't even half fill the stadium for that game either. My mate went and tells me that he nearly fell asleep, the game and atmosphere were that bad.

You are asking why do League fans not support the International game?

I wish I knew the answer but regardless of not knowing the reason why (lack of belief in the team's chances would be in there somewhere) I still know that they generally don't as evidenced by International crowds in this country stretching back for almost as long as most can remember.

The Challenge Cup final always was and still generally is a big event, both for the teams involved but also for the game at large.

It's unusual that in the 80's and early 90's when club crowds for league games were generally way down on what they are now(apart from the Hull-HKR early 80's), you could still fill Wembley and any football ground for a GB-Australia game. The '86 Aussie tour over here was very well supported, same for '90 as I remember from actually being at the games.
Leeds average crowd league when I began watching them was around 5K, this actually jumped up for CC games, the reverse would seem to be the case now.

Looking at society in general the increase in attendence at music festivals for example, has skyrocketed. There are more of them and they sell out in minutes. People obviously want to go out and do things, not sure why RL can't tap into that. Millenium Magic is not exactly oversubscribed (I'm not saying it isn't worth doing, but if Radio 1 had a few X-Factor contestants and Lady Gaga playing it would sell out in 60 seconds flat).

Just some random musings from the moustache.

I don't ever recall Wembley getting close to selling out for a RL International although I take the point you make generally having been crammed into such as Headingley in '78 and Boothferry Park in '82 as well as very healthy (possibly capacity) turnouts at such as Old Trafford although it was a long way short of the capacity it offers today and Elland Road.

Just to pick up on your comparison with music festivals...

These kinds of things are marketed very much as "events". It's not so much who is playing at Glastonbury or Leeds/Reading or T In The Park, it's the event itself that attracts the crowds.

Rugby League simply doesn't have "events" of that kind outside the Challenge Cup final or Grand Final.

If I wanted to, I could go see each of the fixtures that were played at Millenium Magic separately when their equivalent regular season slot came around. Similarly the frequency of international games between England/Australia/New Zealand is IMO taking some of the lustre off them.

The 86 and 90 tours were special in that they marked the rebuilding of GB after the apocalypse that was 1982. It had been four years since the last tour, and they represented a rare chance for British fans to see the likes of Lewis, Meninga, Pearce etc, back in the days when all you saw of the NSWRL was a weekly highlights video from Micron if your local rental shop stocked it.

These days if you want to see Lockyer, Slater or Smith you can do so on TV every week. There's no mystery to these players any more, even less so now that you can guarantee seeing them in the flesh at least every two years without leaving the M62 corridor.

JONNY is on the spot with the travel. Saracens successfully gave tickets away to London-based fans of two London-based clubs for their Wembley RU adventures. The RFL need to give really serious thought to transport costs. Get it marketed on the M62 corridor, with cheap train fares available from across the M62 Corridor (normal routes from Manchester to Euston, Leeds/Wakey to Kings Cross and Hull Trains to Kings Cross would do it) and reasonable ticket prices and you could get this to work. Same from Wrexham and Cardiff...

It would be admirably ambitious and would require the right pricing and basically promoting the living doughnuts out of it.

I'd go, direct train to Wembley from Leamington Spa you see.... easier to get to than Leeds, in fact.

I meant, why not have the finals day there as opposed to a random international game in which England will get thumped?!

Doesn't look very good to the neutral watching England get mullered in front of a quarter full stadium!

He was a Brentford fan then?

Wembley was near to selling out for the 92 World Cup Final wasn't it? 73,631 were there according to my Rothmans.

54,569 were there in 1990 for GB versus Aus. 36,598 were there for GB versus NZ in 1993 and 57,034 for the 1st test in 94. 66,540 for the 95 World Cup final too.

From 95 onwards the crowds decline quite quickly for internationals. I think there's a few reasons for that. GB became less competitive, Aussie tours stopped happening and the tournaments in their place didn't capture the imagination. Also I think having regular access to the NRL via TV removed the mystery behind the Aussie players. The game itself also looked much more to the club game as a whole and internationals became "tagged on" rather than the culmination of what the game is about.