Needed free flags!

Its like many have already said our game is club based. Touring international games are just overblown friendlies because they are not a regular occurrence for fans to look forward to year in year out. We are very amateur with this kind of stuff and the media of any importance have no attraction to the game.
If there comes a time when most of the England team are playing in the NRL I can see the atmosphere becoming more alienated.

I agree with what another poster said, i think the fact there is no real dislike or needle in games against NZ as opposed to Australia who we see as a real rival and every englishman wants to beat, the atmosphere seems a bit more flat comparison.

There's more than a little truth in it. 2013 world cup final when the stadium announcer called out New Zealand there was mild applause and for Australia massive booing. Quite upset a Aussie in front of us

In the 80s & 90s when touring teams played against club sides, my dad & I would go along to the games, regardless of whether it was our team or not, and support them against the "tourists". Hence we'd then support whomever was playing for GB in the test matches too.

Don't know why supporters attitudes have changed in sport and why people have become so parochial.

Atmosphere poor here again today

Yep, looks a great crowd though

Problem is :

1 terrible game

2 we actually quite like the kiwis. It's hard to get really passionate without that genuine edge of dislike which the Aussies provide.

Dull boring game Nrl style grind. But very poor crowd just no atmosphere at all

Trust me, there was bugger all to get excited about, that's got to the worst England performance (in attack) I've seen in decades. Were we trying to not lose rather than win, fookin disgusting performance. Waste of money, good job it's not far to get home for me!

It was dead quiet. Literally the odd murmur.

But we won't build atmospheres for England until we have frequent games at the same places so that we all know what the score is year after year and so we feel like we have a team to support at a home or a select few homes often. Not a few times every two years.

Worst attacking display I've seen in a long time . What a waste of a great opportunity. We stood far too flat and no running on or off the ball. I think budgie got one pass all game. Atmosphere totally flat .

Yeah I was thinking this, half of the tickets sold were to people from London who haven't been to league before so wouldn't really know what it was all about and wouldn't be able to get fully involved and with hardly any games to go to people in general wont really know how to act at internationals.

Today has probably done untold damage to the game.

Woeful spectacle.

In hull, huddersfield or wigan you shrug your shoulders. But in the capital at the olympic stadium?

Appalling.

As a long time follower of our sport I enjoyed a very good English & NZ defense & a tight game, but you are right that the casual viewer today would be underwhelmed to say the least. this would not be such a big problem if this was one of six or seven international games this year but it is 3 games in two years it tests the faithfull let alone new fans. We need to rebuild a tradition of international games but unless the Aussies loose thier love afair with their club & origin games we are stuffed.

Maybe there's not as much atmosphere because people are genuinely nervous about the outcome of the game, and more interested in seeing how it unfolds?

Games against the Aussies in recent years, even at home, we've gone into as massive underdogs so any bit of good play on the field has been cheered to the rafters. Now, in particular against the Kiwis, it's almost like Man City or Chelsea fans. There's an expectation that England will do well, and a nervousness about things when they don't start well as they haven't in both games so far.

Sorry but that is way wide of the mark, the vast majority of people attending from the Southern regions will have being before AND a decent % actually played the game to one level or another.
The simple fact is that the game was devoid of attacking rugby and was a turgid affair, the fans had nothing much to shout about no matter which part of the country you were from.

The lack of an atmosphere was completely down the dire game that was on the pitch. When England did something good and everyone started clapping and shouting, then it sounded good. But that might of been around 5 minutes out of the 80, appalling game to watch live. Something has to change next week or they will get beaten again.

I think it really was a missed opportunity. Plenty of non RL support there today. Cotton Traders, Tweed jackets, Eng RU shirts, Club RU shirts and we could only show them that. But they were there! Good job otherwise it would have looked a very poor attendance.

We need to stoke up the rivalry in the press, like boxing does. Build up some player rivalries on social media and the newspapers. Get the fans really wanting us to rip the Kiwis apart, then at the end shake hands and say well done to the winner.

Lets be honest if the OZZIE'S we hear has well we would then have also have been cheering the Kiwis when they played the Ozzie's has some one says we like the Kiwis to much its all

and

when we meet

Something I did notice yesterday was a lot of Kiwi fans, maybe it might have been an idea to sell a section of the stadium to Kiwi fans to generate more of an atmosphere?

On the ticket site there was indication of a block seats for NZ fans but you can't make them sit there.

Totally agree with you.
Makes you wonder if the series was being kept alive for next week



Couldn't' believe that we took the 2 points early on, instead of testing the Kiwis.
Macnamara must have been watching too much Union.

Apathy, lots of international rugby league apathy.