cheers Wigan & Wire fans

Leeds end was packed out. There was no room what so ever in the upper.

Nah looked right to me - I was sat in a similar position to 2007 and 2009 and it looked somewhere in between those two crowds. Good effort given the Saints-Leeds overkill of recent years.

From what I could see I think 6k empty seats sounds about right to be honest.

Most of the empty seats looked to be in the top tier of the North stand and the stretford top tier along with the big screen.

Leeds end looked packed though.

I didn't expect a full saints end with it being their 6th year in a row, being at Widnes hasn't exactly helped their support either.

The ground holds 76000 and about 7000 empty seats would seem correct.

RL is dying! Sack the RFL!

Great crowd, well done all who went!

On another thread somebody suggested that yesterday was a breakthrough final and I agree. It was a Grand Final that sealed the magic of the play offs and I hope we can see more of the same in the future where teams in form face-off. When I towards next year's play offs I see the same kind of magic because the top three are losing key personnel, everybody's youngsters are a year older and we have three new Australian coaches with promising backgrounds at Hull, Hull KR and Salford. In addition, Millward should be able to at least maintain Castleford's position and Harlequins RL have recruited well. At a guess that's five teams which should be better next year and subsequently the competition and play offs should be. I can't wait

I love RLFans threads:

"The attendance will be crap" (because we didn't make it)

"Actually, the facts don't bear that out. The attendance was 69k+"

"Rubbish. We didn't make the final. Therefore the attendance was crap. Therefore they're lying about the figure."

lol

Stretford End Tier 2 6,452 seats
North Tier 3 holds 4,084 seats
North West Quadrant's Tier 2 capacity is 3,818
South West Quadrant's capacity (where the screen was) is normally 2,288

16642 seats capacity. Some of those areas didn't even look 50% full.

Then you add in that.
First 2 rows of the North Stand - Closed with green netting
First 2 rows of South Stand - Closed with green netting
Some extra areas of the South Stand closed off.

Don't get me wrong I'm glad that 69k was declared as I want our great sport to be strong, it just didn't look that many. Unless a lot were hiding in hospitality and concourses.

They obviously announced the ticket sales rather than bums on seats. Both sides looked very full. It was an impressive attendance.