How about this for an analogy.

You go out on a Friday night and splash your hard earned cash for someone else to use their body to entertain you and at the end leave you satisfied?

hey, Widnes fan..........

The serious answer is that in the 18 full seasons since Super League started Widnes fans have had just 1 cup semi final to pay out for and no top grade finals or playoffs (IIRC).

In the same 18 seasons Leeds have had:
13 Challenge Cup Semi Finals
32 Super League Playoff games
7 Challenge Cup Finals
8 Super League Grand Finals
& 6 World Club Challenges

You can see how a Cup semi final might slip down the priority list for people. Especially when it's on the other side of the Pennines, Leeds haven't been playing well and it's on TV.

I'm going. Got 2 tickets today and the woman in the shop said they'd had a big rush on sales today.

I'm in Newcastle on Saturday, might catch it on TV, then again I might do something more productive and go for a nice long walk along the coast.

Being a rugby league fan these days is like being a member of a secret society where details of meetings are whispered from one member to the other, when the RFL give a toss about publicising the game to the great world outside of the M62 corridor then the great world outside the M62 corridor may sit up and take notice, until then, a lingering death where no-one really cares.

I'm watching updates on Twitter and game highlights on t'internet the next day. I do have tickets for the final though

Having lived outside the M62 corridor for over 30 years I can only really recall perhaps a decade that bucked that trend. Lingering death, perhaps. But it'll comfortably linger longer than either you or I, I suspect.

As for a north east coastal walk, if you've never been to Ross Links (about an hour north of Newcastle) I strongly recommend it.

Not heard of that but may seek it out, if not this weekend then on one of the many others on the wife's sabbaticals to her roots, I have all day Saturday to kill and leaving the wife at her sisters, no-one to kill it with, the day spreads out before me in one long empty "must do something fulfilling" space and yet I just know that I'll end up in The Ship at Low Newton, to quote Michael Corleone, "Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in again..."

Is that the brew pub in the square of white painted cottages where they also do excellent meals?
If so that's a great place to spend a Saturday afternoon, or any afternoon or evening.

I'm going.
Not looking forward to it.
Can't go to Wembley either.


Meh.

Not being able to shift a measly 8,000 tickets suggests either, or all, of these... 1) Your not passionate about your side as you make out 2) most of you are on benefits and simply can't afford the tickets and travel 3) you're not interested because you expect to lose.

And those half-hearted "fans" moaning that they aren't going because it's the correct side of the Pennines and that it's on tv will doubtless be first in the queue for tickets for Wembley should the 'Whinos' get there even though that is also on telly and it will take you 3 times longer to get there than it will to get to St Helens.

The average attendance for Widnes in 2013 was just under 6000 - if 8000 is measly what is 6000?

Tomorrow, I will be mainly driving between Maiori near Sorrento and Lago di Como. Not much chance of seeing the game BUT I hope all those that do attend enjoy it (supporters of both teams) and that the boys put in a decent shift. If we win, so much the better.

As another fat old git said earlier this week, my days of worrying about the result of a rugby match are long since gone.