That's the headline in the UPFRONT piece in today's R.L.Express and blames lack of publicity from Clubs and the RFL for the poor gates. Carcasonne gave much publicity to their game v. Halifax and got 3,250 fans but others showed "lack of enthusiasm" The article says "Last week this newspaper had hoped to include some preview material for the games and we were promised an interview by a leading official who unfortunately pulled out at the last minute. It seems that other media outlets were no luckier in being able to gather material that would have informed their readers what the competition was about". The article continues "The fixtures were not even shown on the BBC website, Sky, or the Sporting Life website. If the public dont know about the games then they wont be there. Why did the RFL or the Clubs involved not notice the lack of fixture information and do something about it"
The UPFRONT article is an interesting read, a knock for the RFL's publicity department and the apathy of the Clubs.
Personally I went for a pint in my local after the game and talked to a Leyther about what had happened in the game - to my horror, he didnt know the game was on.

I take your point there - the lack of publicity for Championship rugby was even more evident than usual. From the club's perspective, we will always be able to do things better - however, there was 'publicity' in the local press, the club website, this message board, and on LeighLife, but it's hard to drive something that the Game's governng body hasn't (for whatever reason) pushed. I noticed the very respectable attendance at Carcassonne - do you know what their usual gate is, out of interest?

Fev haven't published crowd figures on their website (and they let S/T holders in free) and Toulouse quote 300 for the Halifax game. (should boost their SL aspirations, that one!

)

As Alan says, the club has promoted the thing as best they could - local press, internet, competitive pricing, etc - but they were always gonna be on a hiding to nothing with such a shabbily conceived concept.....and if the architects of this shambles aren't even prepared to promote it, what hope the clubs who were conned into participating??

Does anyone know if we have actually made any money out of this game, sorry if it's been mentioned somewhere else but i haven't seen it.

We were hoping to, presumably based on RFL 'sponsorship' of the tourament and prize money, but I've no idea of the final outcome - again, the RFL didn't publicise the level of attraction to the participating clubs.

It's not that it's a bad concept, but it really does need to be a better thought-out one, for it to continue.

Ok thanks Alan.

It would have been better all four games being played at the same venue on the same day and alternating the home advantage each year. Then the english teams could support each other and the french teams could support each other. You may have got a have decent support for each country then.

I live in Vancouver and knew the game was on so I don't buy the "I didn't know the game was on" excuse of the Leyther in the pub. This was simply a bad idea that was never going to bring in decent crowds at the UK clubs.
For Carcassone it was easier to attract a decent crowd. They were playing a higher grade team from another country. Classic win,win for there support. Watch a better class of opposition with the chance of giant killing a UK team.
Maybe the answer is to play all the games in France. The RFL reward the Championship top 3 or 4 teams with an all expenses paid trip to France at a time that does not impact the regular season (preseason) with some prize money thrown in.

I live in Jersey and knew all about the game from about a month ago!

To be honest,if the Leyther you talked too was a regular, and he didn't know the game was on,he must be a half wit!

To be fair to 'leigh-ratii' he makes a valid point. This competition was gradually downgraded from the initial grandiose scheme that was first mooted by the RFL, to something of a poor compromise. And, just to be fair to the RFL too, (

) they were on a hiding to nothing, in that a larger scale competition just wouldn't fit into the season of the Championship clubs involved - or the French teams for that matter, as their season had ended.

The RFL probably made the mistake of reacting to the Championship clubs, who had one less home game this season, with an ill-conceived plan.

And if you think things are bad this time round, how are the Championship clubs going to fit it into their fixture lists next season, with EIGHT more league games to play?

As for people not knowing the game was on, I suspect they are the self-same 'supporters' who never seem to know when/where we are playing - enough of them ask me those questions on a regular basis!

Die-hard fans will have known about the games, but the lack of publicity gave them a low profile. If they had been hyped up the crowds would have been bigger, but the RFL didn't want that to happen because they clashed with Super League games. In future years it would be better just to have a game between the two champions in February which would give the French an advantage and make the game closer.

Which is along the lines of the idea I muted a while back. I suggested it might be played as a 'curtain raiser' (or 'double-header' depending on how you want to spin it!) with the WCC......no real disruption to the season, but a simple way to showcase both the Championship and the French League, and offer much needed publicity to both comps!!

Simples!!

Trouble is with such a game it's slap bang in the middle of the French season if played in February.

Much like this weekend and our league?

Then maybe it's time for the French to embrace the same 'summer' season as the rest of the rugby league playing world?

Funnily enough, the Leyther who I saw who didnt know there had been a game, and myself finished up having lets say a 'mild' argument. "How could he be a Leyther but not know there was a game" He produced his fixture card (the game wasnt listed) I told him it had been all over the Journal, "Ive not seen a Journal for two years" was his reply "Surely youv'e seen it on the forum" Youve guessed it, he hasnt got a computer. Apparently none of his mates had even mentioned the game to him.
The Avignon President in the after match 'thing' said their season had finished four weeks ago so had been difficult to keep their lads in trim for the game. I wondered whether the Club 'almost' forgot they were coming, the players seemed to line up for the French anthem - did the club forget it I wonder, and the usual 'gift' you give to overseas visitors seemed to have been overlooked. The Club hurriedly found a nice picture of Hilton Park, a shirt from the shop and an autographed ball to hand over.....they seemed pleased though. Lets get back to the serious stuff on Thursday night - Good luck lads.

Are the 8 extra league games not being offset by the reduction of the Northern Rail Cup to a straight knock out? Furthermore, the WCC seems to work quite well for the British teams so the RFL and FFR should use the same formula. Play it in France, the supposedly weaker league and at a time to suit their team. We play the NRL sides after our season has started and before their's has begun. It gives our teams a much better chance. I'm sure it would draw a good crowd in France and yield a reasonable profit even if only one of our clubs was involved.

To sum the RFL up, the Co-operative Championship tables haven't been updated on the offcial website since round six. They don't give a crap about rugby at our level, its seen as reserve grade.

Hi Brian,

I believe the current (but not necessarily final) thinking would be to remove the four NRC group games from Championship club fixtures, but there will still be logistical difficulties in fitting all the games within the intended start and finish dates for the 2013 season.

If there was 3250 at Carcassonne then i'm the Queen! How they would even count the crowd i'm not sure as it was free entry - the gates were just open and no one was counting. I'd estimate the true figure was around 1500.

And therein lies the reality of the competition. Thanks for that info HL. Did you go to Carcassonne? Hope everyone got back safely - but tired!

I wonder if we just 'threw the gates open', whether we would get 3,000+ on mind?

We threw the gates open at Fax a few seasons ago so we could get the required average attendance for super league entry

It was the RFL's idea - they told us to so they had an application to belittle that wasn't from a super league club - we love to do our bit to take pressure off the bulls!

Someone posted a link on the Sheffield board which included clips of the game and the folk watching.

The commentary was in French and being fluent I was able to realise/understand most of the crowd were in the marquees dotted around the ground.

Yeah I was there. Was a quality weekend (probably made better by the result)

But how they get to that figure is just silly. No one was counting and they've just invented it.

Looks like they took a leaf out of Halifax's book, according to 'freddie's wig'!

Definitely think Toulouse missed a trick, by announcing 300 for their game though.

Well done on making that journey - respect!

Of course, having done that, you've no excuse for not getting to Leigh tomorrow - providing you're back, that is!