Your benchmarks are wrong. In the last 2 World Cups they hadn't sold 35k for the final with only a fortnight to go, let alone 9 months out. This is progress, Rome wasn't built in a day - all we should be looking for is step-by-step improvement, and that's what this looks like. I remember going to a Union WC game in Gloucester as a kid, and there were only about 8000 there but people were happy at the time.

If we run a persistent, consistent international programme for the next decade, and continue to invest in talent development to give England half a chance, we'll get there eventually. Anything much faster would be fools gold anyway.

The sport receives little mainstream media coverage because the international scene is pitifully weak in comparison to other equivalent sports such as cricket and RU, and outside of the CC and SL finals there are no real major events for the media to cover. And part of this problem is because the sport is unambitious and people are so worried about 'looking bad' that we end up playing England internationals at places like Doncaster and Leigh, which is totally defeatist and just ends up being a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The match at Wembley on national TV in 2011 did more for the sport's profile than 20 England v Australia matches at Wigan or Hull.

Yeah except you pretty much disregarded the given answer, and when another poster told you what you wanted to hear then you accepted it without question.

FWIW, reading [url=http://www.rlwc2013.com/rugby-league-world-news/article/890/beanie-mania-forces-ticket-offer-extensionthis article[/url it looks as though what was 'extended' was a giveaway of free hats after the cut-price tickets sold out. But yeah, I'm sure that is a clear sign that ticket sales are slow and that the tournament is going to be a massive failure.

I replied as such , hardly disregarding it

=#BF0000I suppose , those kind of ' mind games ' always seem pointless to me , eventually the majority start to ignore them I find when they do them at club level , or they drive down the price of the product

=#4040BFI suggested that was how I understood things , but then said I was confused , so not without question

You are getting paranoid my friend

They ain't no "PR" company...
[urlhttp://www.fasttrackagency.com/1102/about-us/our-team/uk/[/url
...some pretty heavy hitters there....let'shopethey earn their crust.

Quote ="SmokeyTA"pessimism like this? www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-c ... per-league'" Well since I said the "start of the season", no, I wouldn't have been referring to an article from April 2012, because I'm not a certified cretin. Besides, we can all find 'good' articles. That doesn't prove anything. If you think the media profile and general 'narrative' out there right now is good, you're in your own world and I can't help you.

Quote ="SmokeyTA"pessimism like this? www.guardian.co.uk/sport/david-c ... per-league'" Well since I said the "start of the season", no, I wouldn't have been referring to an article from April 2012, because I'm not a certified cretin. Besides, we can all find 'good' articles. That doesn't prove anything. If you think the media profile and general 'narrative' out there right now is good, you're in your own world and I can't help you.