I agree with the pro-Cardiff brigade. Saturday was my first visit to the new Wembley. Great view from our seats, good stadium, right result (for me, of course), but not a patch on the Cardiff experience. Apart from the Millennium being such a great stadium, Cardiff being a small city means everyone stays together, whereas in London the crowd soon disperses. Better atmosphere all round in Cardiff. I would have kept the Challenge Cup Final there.

2007 St Helens 30–8 Catalans Dragons Wembley Stadium, London 84,241
2008 St Helens 28–16 Hull Wembley Stadium, London 82,821

2010 Warrington Wolves 30-6 Leeds Rhinos Wembley Stadium, London 85,217
2011 Wigan Warriors 28 -18 Leeds Rhinos Wembley Stadium, London 78,482

Why? because season 2009 seemed a blip, was it Huddersfield were not a draw, look at all the 80,000 plus! my comment was the decline since 2010.

I'll just go and check the Carnegie site again because those figures look different from the ones I saw last night.

ETA: Prior to 2007 there were a mix of attendances in the mid 70,000s and mid to high 60,000 with the exception of a couple of years in the 1990s when 90,000 was recorded.

So my instinct was right: attendances in the 80,000s are the exception rather than the rule. In the last 15 years there have been just three occasions when 80,000 plus attendances have been recorded, all three being at the new Wembley. Interesting that two of them were when Saints played! (Given that we are always told how we don't turn up)

According to League Weekly, the BBC viewing figures were up this year on last for the quarter and semi finals - 21% and 26% respectively. And yet the BBC's coverage is shrinkng year on year. Amazing how the station we all pay for isn't listening to a growing number of its customers!

That can easily be attributed to both Leeds not selling as many as they could have because of fans expecting a battering and a lot of neutrals staying away for the same reason.

The fact that they are probably two of the most disliked teams at the moment won't of helped amongst the neutrals either.

You are completely right about Leeds not selling tickets which is a bad indictment on them as a club, the first time in a while they have a bad season (Why Heatherington took McDermott from us with his record is beyond me) and they don't back their team? However much people may not like Wigan they have had some bad seasons but their fans still backed them home and away, they sold all their allocation and had extra and the football team attracted a good attendance for them of 17,000 plus kicking off at 12.30pm

It sickens me to read comments like "most disliked teams" that is not the game I grew up in, there was not real Hatred and that is what it is years back okay yes competitive and good humoured banter, is it just a reflection on life today that our game is stooping down to the levels it does on the terraces and the language used in some forums and so bitter hatred?

Back to SaintsFan comment I took some stick myself on my own club website for attacking the BBC for putting the warm up on the red button! they have known the dates since the season fixtures were released, they set the kick off time, why not have had it 3pm and allowed more pre match coverage on the main BBC1 Channel, so many people seem not to know about the red button? Perhaps with the increased audience was down to people sticking around after the F1 Qualifying Session? so we gained from that. In the weekly media someone was calling for the The Challenge Cup to go to Sky, no way should we sell out in that way, if the BBC are not interested why not ITV, they are doing the Rugby Union World Cup.

I think the BBC will not continue with the Challenge Cup if they can get away with it and there are serious doubts about the Super League Show this year it has been a farce some of the times it is broadcast and how fans outside of the North West are expected to watch at an unearthly hour on BBC2. The administration of Our Great Game is a shambles what we allow and how we run such a major events.

That comment wasn't from my perspective, I was talking about the eyes of the general populace. I sat down to watch a good game of RL as a neutral without any inclination towards either side.