Union troll. Italy true - the others? Nope. You've jumped the shark GF

On Friday we were in the Queen Vic pub in LLoret the day before Catalans v Wire and it was absolutely packed with blokes wearing England soccer gear and sporting three lions tatoos watching a dull game against a country I have never heard of.

It got me thinking, England RL is undoubtledly in a better postition than the soccer version in terms of chances of winning the world cup (based on William Hill odds England RL- 6/1 England Soccer- 20/1). Most of the blokes sat there going mad over a meaningless game had probably never been to watch an international, nor will they ever be able to afford to.

Then I come home and log onto this forum, to find a plethora of reasons not to support England RL from people who have the chance to watch the World Cup on the doorstep for a great price. Then we wonder why the sport doesn't get enough sponsorship/exposure? If this competition is unsuccessful in terms of bums on seats the only people we have to blame is ourselves.

Great post that - I agree with it all. Those who don't bother going are the ones who'll sit there complaining that it wasn't all sold out !

Touche

Weird lot RL fans! When the next World Cup is on I'll be taking leave to head over to the East coast and catch as many games as I can. Some people won't travel 20 miles to see the best RL players in the world do battle. Very weird.

I will always remember getting grumpy over something in 2011 and deciding that I wouldn't be going to Wembley. A week before I changed my mind and spent the week trying to find ways to get there from Hull with a uni mate without breaking the bank but failed so we settled for watching on the telly. What excitement we missed out on! Don't make that same mistake.

I also remember after that game putting the six o'clock news on and despite there having been a full day of Premier League football, the clash at Wembley topped the sports bulletin with a lengthy feature. That there shows how important the international game is to RL in this country.

I doubt USA will have that many Aussies TBH, I don't think many qualify.

I'm genuinely worried about the USA more than any other team. They struggle to beat Canada these days, and have only a very small select group of heritage players to fall back on.

You know what your getting, your getting an England side made up of 17 players. Your not watching your club side so it doesn't matter what players are involved. As pointed out we all know about 90% of the side and the other 10% will be a close run thing but shouldn't make a jot of difference to anybody's decision to go to games or not.

Out of interest who is it or isn't it you want to see in the team before committing?

As for the game crying out for some positive news stories I surely don't have to explain that. Things have been going a bit wrong domestically for a while now.

They'll probably get flogged by Scotland but whatever, they earned their spot and it's a good experience. At least they'll be picking from the strongest possible domestic base after the USARL and AMNRL settled their differences.

Have they? That's great news.