I (and others) have posted the topic about the RLWC. A few people look at it,but, hardly anybody makes comment. Bearing in mind I believe the RLWC is the most crucial competition in the history of rugby league.....why the apathy? It has the potential to be a really successful tournament, hopefully encouraging people who have never been to a game...to see this great sport of rugby league. The people on this message board want to discuss whether to keep Gardner....or to put him at centre....words fail me.
Then again....maybe you've got all your tickets. Somehow I doubt it!
Failure to support this tournament....and London's difficulties..................will see the demise of the whole sport within 10 years. Come on.....get supporting your sport.

There are several WC threads on the virtual terrace.

Lots of people post about the world cup on those threads.

In the it is a club based forum, so not surprising that club topics dominate and WC threads tend to float down the forum.

I would never ban a thread on the WC for being off topic, but neither would I expect it to get alot of attention here as compared to on the virtual terrace.

The apathy is purely due to how utterly predictable International Rugby League is and has been for 30 years. In my lifetime we've never beaten Australia in any competition (I.e placed higher or beaten them in a series) and we aren't about to change that now.

Or are we? That's the beauty of it I guess, if we did manage to win it I'd be excited about the next one. I'm going to a few games, but with absolutely zero expectations. Given how utterly embarrassing the last one in this country was I'm just hoping the sport gets through it without any major hate campaigns from the press. We do all need to get behind it, but something truly special would need to happen for the press to get behind it and generate the sort of media driven hype they do for the Union world cup.

Australia are one of 14 teams in the World Cup, and are not the defending champions so I'm not sure what relevance they have to anything.

You're kidding right? If we could beat Austrailia in the knock out part of the comp, it would be massive for the game in this country.

Just not piquing my interest at all.

But then, if it weren't for a love of Saints, I'd lose most interest in the sport. As an entertainment spectacle, it's declined in recent years. Too much of a defence-dominated arm-wrestle

I'm loving the run up to the world cup. So far I have tickets for Cardiff, Wembley, LP, HJ and LSV. Since I have had to buy all my tickets at once due to recent unemployment I can't afford any further games but if money is available on pay day I will look at going to more matches.

There's a big buzz about the world cup if you hang out on forums/Twitter, etc where there are rugby league fans (as opposed to Saints only fans).

Saints as per usual are not marketing the world cup match at LP at all. They deserve what they get then in terms of turn out.

Buying all my tickets tomorrow, the sales seem to be going very well.

Surely the rfl should be the ones marketing the game not saints? They also don't do any marketing for Liverpool u21s to my knowledge, they are just renting the stadium out ...

I really cannot wait for it to get going now.

I've tickets for the semi and the final sorted, with tickets for everything else being sorted soon. I'm also volunteering so I can't wait to be involved.

Over 50k sold at wembley, the final looks like it's selling well and the game vs Ireland only has 2k tickets left. Hopefully the opener sells well (I'm not going because of price to get there and stay etc) and the other England game in hull. The semi and final should sell out during the tournament when the buzz hits it's peak.

For a M62 sport, that's not bad going.

Marketing in what way? So far I've seen promotions on the official site, our Facebook page and on twitter.
What more do you feel the club should be doing?

The club promotes the U21 games on the website as well as Facebook and Twitter.

Can't speak for social media stuff but the saints website gives as much time to the World Cup as it does Liverpool u21s? i still don't see why it's saints responsibility to advertise an rfl event ...

Because I think it was part of the "host city" tender commitment.

Fair play, then I retract my previous comments, if that's the case then the advertising should be similar to a saints game as opposed a Liverpool 21s game

Does anyone know how ticket sales are going for the lp game?

The Huddersfield game is looking like a sell out now.

Although some sections are not showing as sold out if you try to click on some sections it will not let you, so they must be full, but it probably needs a manual change to change the colour to purple sold out.

But more than that, there are no middle sections on any side where you can get 4 seats together.

I think once this game has sold out, Saints may see an uptake in their own game.

Saints have been landed with a game on the same day with England. So it's a tougher sell. I know you can get back, but if people want to have a drink, it's less likely that they will tramp across for a second game.

I think 10k would be a good turn out for Saints.

Got tickets for the quarter final at the JJB and going to Australia Vs Fiji at Langtree Park. Might get tickets for the final too.

Oh, they could be doing all sorts of things. They could be using the players to promote it. They could have had events before the season ended to promote it, when people were congregated at the stadium. They could be going round schools, playing Australia verses Fiji games. All sorts really.

Promoting the game was part of the bid put in jointly with the Council. The Council have been just as bad as Saints. Neither has organised anything to promote the game or world cup anywhere in the town. Therefore they are effectively in breach of their bid commitment. Saints will be lucky to get another international, especially if they do sod all at the match (which I am expecting them to do). I doubt there will be a good crowd at LP but you never know. My guess is that Saints assume the fact that we are hosting Australia is enough to pull in the crowds and they can just do nothing.

Which is why you'd think they'd be working hard to promote it, trying to enthuse locals who wouldn't travel to Hudds.

I'd be very surprised if Saints got 10,000 to the game. In fact, we could be the competition's embarrassment.

From what I've seen Saints are one of the only ones clearly advertising their game on their website.

From what you can see/have heard, are any of the other clubs doing any more than Saints are?

Without getting into the whole what other people argument, I have to say which players can they be using to promote it? They won't have access to the Aus/ Fiji squads for them to do appearances so you can't expect saints to do that, and I'm not sure how any of the current saints team turning up is any sort of promotion as they are in no way involved.

If they'd of talked/advertised it during the season then we'd get the usual doom mongers critiquing the club for writing off the end of the season and how dare they try and ignore the worst end of the season ever had by any team ever. Also I imagine the rfl would have some sort of schedule of event for when promotions/ advertising should be - all the talk has been that everyone from the rfl wanted to go straight from the grand final and domestic talk into the rlwc and not let either interfere with the other.

I don't know if they are in school atm since I'm not in a school in st.helens but given most of the players are on leave/ with international teams I'd imagine we're light on the ground on that respect - but even so I don't know that many Australia vs Fiji games what are they?



That said of course there are things they could be doing but for now social media should be the way forward, and there may be a bigger push closer to the game - I think it's unfair to criticise them for now

The problem to me is that that is ALL they are doing. When the season was still going they did nothing. They did make a commitment to promote the game as part of the bid and that's a fact but they haven't honoured it. Nor has the council, but then I wouldn't expect them to either as they are utterly clueless.

So Saints should be putting money into advertising a game they get no money from???

Of course they get money from it. They get all the income from hospitality sales.

They were provided with leaflets, for example, that they passed on to the council who have done nothing with them. Why didn't Saints hand out those leaflets at the last match against Wire? Or why didn't they arrange for players to hand out leaflets in a town centre event promoting the match? Get children involved in an Aussie - Fiji tag game or something? There are endless ideas that would cost sod all really, except maybe a bit in security/health and safety but would engender a buzz around town. Obviously the Council working in conjunction would have been good too given that both Council and club joined in the bid. But their bidding obligation was to promote the game. They haven't, so they don't deserve any future games.