Quote ="MattyB"This 'only professional club' myth is tiresome. Anyone would think this spanned a decade and not weeks/months (never mind the fact that Leeds went fully pro just before us and Saints just after us).'" Exactly, and just to prove it here's a video of Leeds v Saints in 1992, please note the professions of players as shown on the t.v. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... el=Andy78L The year after Wigan won the Challenge Cup with Andy Farrell becoming the youngest ever player to win the trophy, he was an apprentice joiner with Wigan council at the time!!

Quote ="MattyB"This 'only professional club' myth is tiresome. Anyone would think this spanned a decade and not weeks/months (never mind the fact that Leeds went fully pro just before us and Saints just after us).'" Exactly, and just to prove it here's a video of Leeds v Saints in 1992, please note the professions of players as shown on the t.v. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... el=Andy78L The year after Wigan won the Challenge Cup with Andy Farrell becoming the youngest ever player to win the trophy, he was an apprentice joiner with Wigan council at the time!!

"Facts, we don't need no steenkin" facts".
With apologies to a couple of classic Westerns

Looking at the stadium map at a rough guess I'd say about 14k sold, not bad for the first week especially this time of the year, lets hope the club promote the hell out of this once New Year is over and done with

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Exactly, and just to prove it here's a video of Leeds v Saints in 1992, please note the professions of players as shown on the t.v. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... el=Andy78L The year after Wigan won the Challenge Cup with Andy Farrell becoming the youngest ever player to win the trophy, he was an apprentice joiner with Wigan council at the time!!'" Stop it Brian, our friends from over the hill have convinced themselves, for the best part of 40 years, that being the only fully professional team in the league gave us total dominance for a decade. You have now burst the bubble at a time when we should be welcoming to our fellow man. You should be ashamed of yourself you Grinch. By the way, Saints didn’t have a bad side for an amateur outfit

Quote ="Rogues Gallery"Exactly, and just to prove it here's a video of Leeds v Saints in 1992, please note the professions of players as shown on the t.v. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Pc6kv ... el=Andy78L The year after Wigan won the Challenge Cup with Andy Farrell becoming the youngest ever player to win the trophy, he was an apprentice joiner with Wigan council at the time!!'" Stop it Brian, our friends from over the hill have convinced themselves, for the best part of 40 years, that being the only fully professional team in the league gave us total dominance for a decade. You have now burst the bubble at a time when we should be welcoming to our fellow man. You should be ashamed of yourself you Grinch. By the way, Saints didn’t have a bad side for an amateur outfit

15,000 sold. 8 weeks to go.

Sell out?

Possibly - North Stand seats might be difficult to shift. Over 20k will be fine.

Does anyone know who receives the revenue from ticket sales?

I`m no Wigan fan but the way Peet conducts himself and the way he turned the team round playing an attractive blend of rugby and giving youngsters their chance one cannot fail to be impressed.
I think you will win the treble next year and I will be hoping you stuff a team from Australia.
The only thing that might sour your win amongst other supporters and the Aussie press is the game being played here and not either in Australia or a neutral country like Vegas.
But good luck and hope you win from a Leeds fan.

I'm no Wigan fan, but I have always wanted the English club sides to win the WCC games and I will be in 2024 too.

As a fan of Leeds RLFC/ Rhinos the 1987 WCC game against Manly at Central Park is the best and also most memorable club game that didn't feature Leeds that I have ever been to.
The atmosphere at Central Park was electric that night.
What a win that was for Wigan but also for the sport in this country too

Ticket bought middle of South stand . Can't wait!

The club have just announced over 17k tickets sold so far.

West Stand - less than 100 left. (WS1 & WS10 yet to be released)
South Stand - less than 200 left. (SS1 yet to be released)
East Stand - less than 500 left. (ES1 & ES10 yet to be released)
North Stand - Gaps starting to appear in central blocks.


All bodes well for a full house come February.

The reaction to tickets going on sale has been outstanding. To shift 17,000 in a couple of weeks and around Christmas time has been some effort. I think Rads himself had it right in saying he expects fans of all clubs to attend as they’ll want to see this Penrith team in the flesh and especially Cleary. It’s going to be a special night.

Tremendous effort, hopefully over the next few weeks demand will mean the club open up the "end" blocks for sale

Will be the highest WCC crowd in a decade when over 30k watched Sydney v Wigan. Under 14k attended Penrith v Saints and 16k attended Saints v Sydney in 2020.

All I can say is Wigan are the biggest draw either here or in Australia than our little rivals.

The club have just announced 18k tickets sold.

Checked last night there were only 60 seats left in the West Stand and these were dotted all over the place.

SS1 opened up for sale

Hope they have some seats available after Jan pay day. Xmas is very expensive, especially with an xmas day baby (albeit it 14 years ago)

A potential sell out will be great but I can't get over the nagging feeling that we're in a bit of trouble with this one. It feels like Penrith will really prioritise this given the commitment to fly over here, the fact that its a trophy they haven't yet won and the possibility of being the first NRL team to lose in successive WCC's. Even just mentioning the game in some of their press releases and retweeting the crowd figures wouldn't be something you would normally see the NRL clubs do with this fixture. St Helens maybe caught them a little cold last year and ground it out in horrendous conditions - I think we'll see a much improved version in Feb.

There is no way we’ll catch them off guard. To beat them will be one hell of an ask and Saints result only make it harder for us IMO. They (Saints fans) can like it or not but Penrith treated that fixture last year with real arrogance and I don’t think they’ll do it again. I actually came across the highlights on YouTube the other day of the Saints game and the NRL site had titled them ‘Pre season Round 2’. That didn’t mean Penrith saw it like that but it tells a story of what the general feeling was over there.

I reckon we've got 30 to 60 mins max before we see a Saints fan pop-up to refute everything you've said. They can't help it.

I don’t get why it’s so insulting to them. If Penrith play at their best against us, are totally switched on and we don’t get the bounce of the ball, they’ll beat us and so they should. They treated that Saints game pretty much as a friendly but that doesn’t take away from the achievement. A team spending 4 times what you can, playing on home soil and being lauded as possibly the best Australian team of all time, should still win the game, even taking it lightly. It was an amazing victory for Saints, no doubt about it.

Spot on and, like you said earlier, facing them this time is even more of a challenge. They won't be caught off guard twice, so it will take a herculean effort to turn them over. I'd go as far as to say that, if we played them away, it would be almost impossible.

The hope for us are the exits of Crichton and Leniu but any team with a spine including Edwards, Luai, Cleary and Yeo is going to be a monstrous challenge. Add in Leota and JFH and we’ll need everything to fall our way. It’s going to be a great night regardless of the result and you just never know what can happen.

Stopping Leota, Fisher-Harris and Liam Martin in the first 10/15 minutes will be crucial. They set the physical tone for Penrith for the spine to play off the back.

Met them three physically. Move up quick/kick pressure on Cleary. To’o is the most dangerous outside back, similar to Makinson. I’d bomb him to restrict him taking a proper carry.

As you’ve said Leniu is a big loss, they should have too much experience coming off the bench but knowing them they’ll be very good young players.

Should be a great game, Panthers are 4 point favourites with the bookies and that’s probably about right.

Should be low scoring.