Like the look of the WC game, but you can play as club sides in the Lomu one (and customise the game) so probably that one. Hope they use the old commentary from the PS1 version

That the journalistic equivalent of the British ex-pat sitting in a bar - be it in Dubai, Spain or New Zealand - telling the locals how the mother country has gone to the dogs. All he's short of is blaming it all on the darkies and he's gone the full set.

Still, I suspect preaching to a bunch of Kiwis about how terrible it is to steal players from other countries might cause more than a few embarrassed whistles from his readership - Nathan Fien and Dipak Patel, anyone?

well done lads though I can't see much hope for them this coming season - bring back Lawrence FFS

=#BF0000Beau Knows Rugby Union on youtube

[url=http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/sport/rugby-union/saints/breaking_news_investigation_into_claim_saints_prop_mujati_was_subject_to_racial_abuse_during_leinster_game_1_3007538Leinster are holding a “full internal investigation” after Northampton prop Brian Mujati claimed he was the subject of racist remarks during Friday night’s pre-season friendly at Donnybrook. Mujati, 26, made the allegations on Twitter on Saturday morning.[/url

[url=http://www.rugbyrugby.com/news/news/northern_hemishere/6993965/leinster_dismiss_mujati_claimsLeinster have put Brian Mujati's allegations of racism by two of their players down to a misinterpretation and say the matter is now "closed".[/url

Game was Friday night and the matter was publicised via twitter Saturday. You have to hand it to Leinster for the speed of their investigating team.

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[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/aug/31/rugby-world-cup-2011-romania?cat=sport&type=articleRomania wing refuses to fly to New Zealand[/url

[url=http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/sep/02/saracens-leicester-tigers-aviva-premiership?cat=sport&type=articleGuardian Premiership preview[/url
Next season will offer some respite, in the form of the new salary cap exemption for one "star" player, either to help recruit an overseas drawcard or to retain a homegrown star. Compensation is already paid to clubs supplying English World Cup players but the salary cap ceiling of £4.25m still rules out the financial largesse of the bigger French clubs.

My tea leaves show Saracens to retain their title at Leicester's expense, Newcastle to finish bottom and a long, hard slog for the vast majority.

Come on Wasps

£50 on Newcastle to finish bottom.

I see that the Twickenham double header attendance was down from 75,112 in 2010 to 55,437 this year and Newcastle start with 3,650 for their first home game which has to be worrying for them

Terrible start for Newcastle with a home defeat and both Exeter and Worcester winning. Massive away results for Wasps and Exeter today but still think it will be a Leicester v SAracens final.

That's a seriously poor attendance. Especially against a big club like Bath, and on the first day of the season, and on a weekend when there is little in the way of football distraction. There are Conference football teams with bigger gates.

I wonder if there are any open markets on promotion to the Premiership. If you can get decent odds on Leeds, it might be worth it- if the bookies haven't realised that only Leeds and Bristol have stadia which will allow them to be promoted.

But they still have to finish top, which after seeing the comings and goings I don't think they will.

The World Cup is next week, seems pretty normal that the Aviva premiership attendance would be down. I think the only real shock would be if the Aviva attendance was up or the same as last year!

I know I'm not d about the any club rugby until the WC finishes

Really? So the increased awareness of the game through the World Cup has a negative effect on the game

I would understand if the games were in the UK and people were tactically deciding which games to attend but you are saying that people will not bother watching the team they support until after the World Cup has finished?

Poor in pre-season, outplayed by London Welsh yesterday - little to no chance of winning that division this year.

Pretty much. It's idiotic that the RWC is coinciding with club competitions. People have priorities and only a certain amount of time.

As a League, Rugby and Football(American) fan, I know I don't have the time to care about the Aviva Premiership right now.

I care about the RWC, NRL Finals and impending NFL season. I simply don't have the time or desire to watch Aviva Premiership B teams playing against each other with the RWC being on.

Fair enough. Do you regularly attend an Aviva Premiership club or more of a Union fan in general? (not a dig by the way, I am a 'floating' League guy)

No I'm only a fair-weather fan, but I imagine a lot of people are which is probably why interest is down.

I've only watched Union for a few years. I go for Sale in the Aviva Prem, been to a handful of games. Tickets are cheap so I probably should go more but without my own transport and nobody to go with it's a bit of a pain in the . Last time I went I spent an hour too long in the pub, missed the bus back from Manchester , had to wait 2 hours for a train home, and the train in question stopped at Blackpool for repairs or something for 3 hours - Was daylight by the time I got home



I like Rugby more much than I like Sale, mind. If the Super Rugby comp was on at the moment I'd probably find time for it

I'm sure Shark J wouldn't mind standing next to you at Sale rancid. He comes on here quite a bit during the union season.

If the FIFA world cup was held during september/october would Football Premiership attendences increase or decrease over the the same period the previous season? Evidence suggests the last two world cups does have a negative impact when the World Cup is held outside Europe in the European off season. Regarding the London double header similar thing happened four years ago.

Likewise if GB&I/Eng had played 3 test in four weeks preceding SL to crowds of 7k+, 80k+ and 48k plus, would the attendence to season opener of MM be affected significantly the following week? As with the previous world cup The London double header was significantly down (in this instance to the same level of 3 years ago), Newcastle crowds was down about 1.5k (so they are probably concerned) Leicester was slightly up and northampton's slightly down (so not much change there, Worcs as expected. All this on a full weekend of international football fixtures to be followed tomorrow and wednesday by another set important international football matches.

All perfectly valid points

Regarding the international matches – we don’t tend to see the Autumn internationals or the 6 Nations games having a negative effect on Premiership matches so I am not sure why the one home England warm up game for the World Cup would have a major impact

I guess I am just struggling to see why a World Cup that is played on the other side of the world where the majority of games will take place during the middle of the night would affect UK attendances

For the majority of the 6N and AI games Aviva Premiership games do not take place on that weekend, but when they do teams that not regularly sell out their games do see a reduction so to say those games have no effect on domestic fixtures is at best wrong though more accurately being deliberately misleading. There is a pattern here, when world cups take in RU domestic fixtures during that world cup and during the start of the season take a hit.

It should not take too much to figure out why that is the case. During the last world cup why do you think the London Double had a similar fall in attendence? Attendences will be affected because people will be attending games on a continent the other side of the world. The other thing to bear in mind CL/T14/AP will be missing 200 of their best players, it does not take a genius to figure out that will affect attendences, now on this very forum people were stating that SWB and Marshall playing in a test against Australia would add 15k to 20k to the attendence; now something has to give here. The european games will be in most cases played in the morning not the middle of the night. I can see where you are coming from but most of your points are not backed up by reality or knowledge.