2 RL games on Premier sports today.
Canada take on USA in the colonial cup decider from Toronto 1:45pm
New Zealand v Cook Islands RLWC challenge match. 2:45pm

Anyone know how ticket sales for the Craven Park games are going? ticket sales at the KC seem lacklustre (not even the full lower West Stand is open yet) and I can't see England's performance yesterday getting people to rush out for tickets!

Not heard anything. Was on teletext that Englands game v Ireland at Hudds is a sell out. So is one of Nzs games. I would expect no more than 2000-3000 to attend the PNG games at CP but, you never know.

If that's the case then Hull should never host another international match of any kind.

Are you going?

In a huge weekend of knee-jerk reactions all over RLfans, you managed the largest and fastest. Well done sir, a whole week ahead of the 1st game and the sentence has been passed.

Got my tickets for the 2 cp games, did the double promotion and 2 games for £15 can't be sniffed at.
Hope we get a decent turn out.

It's not a knee-jerk, if a city with two SL clubs can only manage 2,000 for a major WC match with tickets available for £5 then they can forget about having any internationals in the future. I know that pre-sales are already well above that figure anyway so it's irrelevant, just playing devil's advocate for the OP.

What are sales at now ?? Cp and kc

Your having an argument about something one fan said and that was just what he thought

Around 3,000 standing tickets for the CP matches plus whatever has been sold in the seating areas. No idea about the KC.

the promo code '50%discount' is still working for all games if anyone still needs tickets. Will get you a £5 standing ticket for Craven Park, and a £7.50 seat for the KC, Bargain!

Joshie Mantellato is having a big few years.
Newcastle local player of the year about 3 years ago.
Paid his own way to play for Italy in their first year.
Next year he kicked Italy to qualify for the World cup on the strength of his near 90% kicking rate.
Got a second tier contract to play for the Knights.
Top pointscorer in NSW cup 2 years in a row.
Makes his firstgrade debut and scores a try and kicks 3/3 from the sidelines.
And now he kicks Italy to a win over England - with a last minute field goal.

He probably should retire now. It must be all down hill from now on.

Played just the 1 first grade game for the Knights has he? Not knocking that, fine achievement - but that's horrific result for a senior England team.
I'd normally now make the point that 'SL coaches insistence on signing journeyman Aussies' is a symptom more than a cause of our shallow talent pool, but the England Knights development squad hammered Samoa. Just got to hope it was one of those freakish things or it could be 2008 all over again. Tbh, there was always a danger of that anyway.

To be fair to him, the Knights have four world class players in Boyd, Uate, McManus and Kev Naiqama ahead of him for the back 3 spots.
Josh has been top point scorer in NSW cup 2 years in a row and scored a record 300+ points last year as well as making the NSW cup team of the year both years.
He is also 6'6" tall and is the only Knights player to ever beat Kurt Gidley in a beep test (he is a personal trainer by profession). He is also the best goal kicker I've seen.
He is about 27 years old and is one of the few players going around that never had elite level junior training, but he is basically a freak athlete who has learnt the game as a mid twenties rookie.

where do you use this code? ive just tried to book them online on the RLWC site but there wasnt a promo code section.

should be at the bottom of the page where you select what ticket price you want, and whether you want adults, or juniors etc

still works



not on family tickets or under 16's but if you do your family ticket separately it saves you a fiver.

booked 10 days ago for the c.p matches tickets not here yet anyone else still waiting on tickets ?

Mine not turned up yet either.

Dont know if that makes me feel better .... yeah it does i think ... just

Firstly I'm looking forward to the world cup and will being going to see PNG in Hull. Their unreserved skill dedication to the sport and reckless disregard for their own safety always makes them exciting to watch.

Now the rant!

Does anyone who's not a rugby league supporter know there's a world cup on in this country. As always the publicity has been shambolic and the coverage from the BBC shocking. There's been little advertising or publicity by the BBC (i don't have sky as I wont give Rupert any of my money so can't speak for their coverage, if they have any). A once weekly advert of cartoon characters mishandling a trophy is hardly going to get the attention of the none supporter. Actual game footage of this brilliant sport might have got some more interest.

From what I've seen the BBC are showing 'most' of England's games live a quarter final semi and final. This with the usual 45 min highlight programmes shown at midnight once a week. To stay up and watch you have to ingest grammes of MKAT or crack. Brilliant! Unless you want to watch it you wont be encouraged to.

This by the BBC who has virtually no other sport to cover or promote now. You can't fault the enthusiasm of the presenters who appear genuinely blown away by the games when they get the job (see Claire Baldwin who referred to Sinfield as the most impressive person and athlete she has met.) But we'll have to stick with the usual lack of BBC enthusiasm for our sport. Having grown up watching them show the oxford cambridge boat race live for a whole day then the bloody varsity rugby union game, live, a f**king university rugby union game live and you were lucky if you got 4-5 live games of football a year before sky.

Even the super league show is shown regionally (just for us northerners). There is NO bbc coverage of the Broncos in London no wonder they never get a crowd. A five live forum is the only build up for the world cup.
The RFL get continually embarrassed by their Aussy counterparts who have successfully established and grown their sport whilst ours have missed countless opportunities through what appears in house bickering and now a world cup that no one knows about.

Anyway sorry for that.

On the competition McNamara doesnot give me confidence and his squad is odd-no Lunt Houghton and 'McKill'um' looks like he'll start as well as Chase. I hope I'm wrong and we do well. We do have plenty of good players.
Roopy's mates may turn up thinking they've already won it and that may be our best hope.

Regarding advertising of the comp theres been quite a bit really, haven't seen anything on Sky but thats to be expected since they aren't covering any games. There is obviously the advert on the BBC as well as numerous interviews on the radio, adverts on the radio plus an advert doing the rounds on ITV. There have been quite a few columns in the newspapers too. There's a thread about it on the VT at the minute [url=http://viewtopic.php?f=2&t=560382&tsmp=1382442776here[/url.

Disagree about the BBC, there has been TV ads during their biggest shows such as the One Show & Match Of The Day, Radio ads on Radio1, a decent feature on the 6 O'Clock news last night, and several positive stories on the BBC Sport website....I think they have put a lot more effort in than usual

I also don't think its a disaster that only the England games are live on BBC, some of the clashes are between very small nations such as Cook Islands-USA which only the most die-hard RL fan will want to watch. I'd rather the BBC audience saw large crowds at Cardiff, Huddersfield, Hull, Wigan & Wembley roaring England on...than a few thousand at Bristol watching the USA. The challenge for the game is to improve some of the smaller nations and make them better viewing for next time we host.

Yes availing the games on Premier Sports does limit the audience, but as far as I understand SKY only wanted exclusive rights and weren't prepared to share with the BBC.

on another note, half of the top tier at the KC has just opened for sale, which would indicate that sales have gone about 15K.

Ah! I avoid the delights of the one show and it sounds like there is a little more going on in the 5 days leading up t othe event. Maybe they have put a little more effort into the advertising of a World Cup. But really.

Rugby League was for decades the sport with second highest number of spectators on a weekly basis behind football. It's probably third now behind rugby union. Does the coverage even match waht they do for any 5 nations rugby union comp. they'd have numerous radio shows, tv specials, every game with hours of build up, complete re-runs on the red button etc etc.

For a world cup for one of the biggest attended sports in the nation has the coverage and advertising been adequate?

Any other world cup and there would be coverage of all the games. By all accounts the Scotland PNG game was a great spectacle. There's plenty of good players in all the squads and they've made format so that there shouldn't be any spectacular blow outs.