you havn't quoted the 2006 final when there was a big club there

Indeed, there were 72,582 there for Saints v Hull FC in 2006 - a Grand Final record. Also our last four home play off attendances have been 16087, 12140, 16291 and 17699.

The RFL must really hope we get our act together in 2012

The third tier of the north is open I reckon 65k minimum. The fact that this game is so intriguing will sell tickets. I can't call it and in all honesty I don't think many saints, Leeds or any other fans could see past a Wigan-wire final, so it's like a massive bonus game for the clubs.

Think people are forgetting the winner get to play Manly at home too.

As of yesterday at 2pm they had sold 59k so I would expect low to mid 60's depending on todays rush (or lack of)

Sure I remember the 2004 and 2005 Bradford v Leeds finals being 74,000+ sell-outs?

I stand corrected, they were 65,000+ sell-outs (must have been before the final extension of OT).

Both had attendances of 65,537 so maybe that was the capacity in those years. 2006 had the highest attendance though, around 1,000 more than last season.

Looks like a great crowd!

I agree. It looks packed out in Manchester

69,107 Cracking attendance.

Some inflating of that figure I think, thousands of empty seats in the Stretford End upper tier, North Stand Tier 3, upper Quadrants, some seats covered in green netting (Front rows, near the screen, entertainment seats) I couldn't see the Leeds upper tier.

It would have looked good on telly as the upper tiers wouldn't have been on.

cheers Wigan & Wire fans

Leeds end was packed out. There was no room what so ever in the upper.

Nah looked right to me - I was sat in a similar position to 2007 and 2009 and it looked somewhere in between those two crowds. Good effort given the Saints-Leeds overkill of recent years.

From what I could see I think 6k empty seats sounds about right to be honest.

Most of the empty seats looked to be in the top tier of the North stand and the stretford top tier along with the big screen.

Leeds end looked packed though.

I didn't expect a full saints end with it being their 6th year in a row, being at Widnes hasn't exactly helped their support either.

The ground holds 76000 and about 7000 empty seats would seem correct.

RL is dying! Sack the RFL!

Great crowd, well done all who went!

On another thread somebody suggested that yesterday was a breakthrough final and I agree. It was a Grand Final that sealed the magic of the play offs and I hope we can see more of the same in the future where teams in form face-off. When I towards next year's play offs I see the same kind of magic because the top three are losing key personnel, everybody's youngsters are a year older and we have three new Australian coaches with promising backgrounds at Hull, Hull KR and Salford. In addition, Millward should be able to at least maintain Castleford's position and Harlequins RL have recruited well. At a guess that's five teams which should be better next year and subsequently the competition and play offs should be. I can't wait

I love RLFans threads:

"The attendance will be crap" (because we didn't make it)

"Actually, the facts don't bear that out. The attendance was 69k+"

"Rubbish. We didn't make the final. Therefore the attendance was crap. Therefore they're lying about the figure."

lol

Stretford End Tier 2 6,452 seats
North Tier 3 holds 4,084 seats
North West Quadrant's Tier 2 capacity is 3,818
South West Quadrant's capacity (where the screen was) is normally 2,288

16642 seats capacity. Some of those areas didn't even look 50% full.

Then you add in that.
First 2 rows of the North Stand - Closed with green netting
First 2 rows of South Stand - Closed with green netting
Some extra areas of the South Stand closed off.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad that 69k was declared as I want our great sport to be strong, it just didn't look that many. Unless a lot were hiding in hospitality and concourses.

They obviously announced the ticket sales rather than bums on seats. Both sides looked very full. It was an impressive attendance.

Anyone know what happened to Feeder? Was looking forward to seeing them play

It was too wet for them apparently.

This is why there should never be bands at the Grand Final. Get The Saturdays out there and they would get on with it. Someone like Rihanna would be perfect, she likes it wet and dirty.

Too wet? It es it down every year at the grand final