Some of them did. Those (like me) who were of the misguided opinion there wasn't a time limit on the offer - and this wasn't communicated at the time - missed out.

I'm still going though.

you can get 10,000 to a local School Fete.
Why can this game not do better than that?
You can throw an Indian blanket over the Villages that play the game in the North of England so distance is not an issue.

distance not an issue? oh yes, because its a 10 minute walk from widnes/warrington/st helens/wigan to leeds or even Hull. of course.

on a personal note i take my son to all matches i go so with tickets & travel i would be looking at £50 right away before we even get a drink or a bite to eat , then the game sunday ex amount again just cant afford it

If I still lived in Leeds, I would go. But as I'm back in Wigan, the M62 on a Friday night still gives me nightmares.

As some have mentioned though, people are tentative about what the quality will be like. If this is a close fought, high intensity game (as it should be, that's the entire point) then the crowds would grow next year. If its the same attendance as France game that'll be a success (imo), as it's a harder game for England.

I do think it's a mistake not having it truly midweek though, Wednesday night, ala Origin, would have allowed a lot more of the players a chance to back up.

Do you have a Car?
I travel 800 Kilometres a week to go to work, its not a big deal.
Is 50 kilometres too far away?

50 kilometers to leeds? from where exactly? bradford?


good for you. but your work commute is not really a legitimate yardstick of the travel capabilities of every other rugby league fan. thats about the same as driving from widnes to manchester and back every week day. your right, thats not a big deal, i do that most days myself. but it becomes a big deal when your going 3-4 times as far and have children to pay for and it takes 2-3 hours getting their on a friday night with the traffic.

Thats the other daft comparison; one thing the winter taught me was that Australia doesn't understand the term 'traffic jam'. Their roads are ghost towns compared to a standard British town centre

You guys know best.
Us hicks that live in small places like Sydney and Brisbane, Melbourne would not know.
Brisbane with the smallest population of 2 million can nut undrestand the hassles.




If going to the game is too hard thats fine.

It was a straight choice for me, Headingley Friday or Headingley Sunday.

Sunday won.

If the RFL had put as much effort into marketing the France game as they have this, you can guarantee that the crowd would have been much higher. This game has recieved probably the most intense marketing campaign I've ever seen from the RFL, while the France game was pretty much ignored.

Really?

it should be played on a saturday 3pm-teatime k-o,giving people time to get there and make a day of it(a bit of razmataz,a few stalls,refreshment tents,a few famous old faces mingling around,maybe a curtain raiser between say france & wales), rather then rush home from work and then travelling a few hours just to get there in time for ko.
the rl havent really marketed it well, as i know a lot with a passing interest in rl(and occasional supporters) who werent aware of it at all.
would a couple of full page ads in the national papers in the past week or so to drum up interest and attract potential new rl fans been to much for the rl to pay out.if you dont speculate you dont accumulate.

Yeah, but who cares about the result? I don't. I am mildly curious, but I'm not going to give up two hours of my weekend for it.

The RFL should stop trying to manufacture a fake rivalry, and should have persevered with the France fixture, except played it in France to give them some advantage.

whats the point in playing france and putting 60 points on them, france couldnt qualify for the 4 nations when they were not in automatically, they are of a poor standard and all the marketing in the world wouldnt convince me to go see them again

I agree that the mid-season test against France wasn't the right thing, it's just a comparison. I think France could give England a real scare at the end of the year though, especially if McNamara is still in charge.

Way more than 6.5k on.

The fact it's a Friday night and it's being held in Leeds pretty much cancels out any Aussies/Kiwis from attending.

Showing the game on Sky won't help either.

So what you are left with are the usual 'I only follow my SL Club' brigade (who won't bother going), the 'I support my country in RL and I'll follow them anywhere brigade' (who will be going) plus a random selection of people from the general M62 area who like RL and might turn up if theres nothing else going on and the rain stops

7k at the most for me tonight... quite a few of them for the novelty factor.

Shame really.

I would say double 7k easy there, pleasantly surprised at the attendance actually.

There is way more than 7K on there.

I would say about 12k at least.

But Bazza says ...........................




Not like him to be wide of the mark is it?

Shocker

what will france offer at end of season that they cant offer now? unless they can bend the rules to get scott dureau to play what chance would they have, catalan are winning off the back of him and toulouse are struggling at foot of championship

England-Exiles crowd given out as 14,175.

Daftest thread of the year so far.

14,174 crowd apparently.

1. Crowd irrelevant
2. Work out what was needed.
3. Funny as that England lost.
4. If you want a decent crowd next year....play it at Craven Cottage, £15 a ticket and play it for the TNT Trophy.....as has been show tonight, English RL fans can't be bothered, but there's enough bar staff in London who'd roll up to see the poms getting whipped