What are the chances of the tournament happening at all next year? Covid won't be done by then, we're going to rumble along, repeating this cycle of over-hyped variant emerging and everyone blindly panicking for years. The attitude of the Penrith owners towards coming to the UK now suggests to me it's unlikely they'll get the tournament played and if they do it will be without Australia, NZ and the NRL players.

They need to formulate Plan B now for that eventuality.

So speaks a "bus pass" RL fan......I fly 900kms to Auckland and thousands to straya to watch the Warriors. London Broncos fans who attend away games (hens teeth, but they do exist) circumnavigate the globe each year....but you resent a 2 hr car trip. You are assuredly one of the people who believed the tories would build you a northern powerhouse

How horrific it must be travelling 120 miles to Coventry and back. I am wondering how these northerners manage to make it as far as London every year as its clearly such a struggle.

Not exactly the furthest distance to travel.

The main issue is that once the match is played that's it. There's no plan to back up with further internationals or events. You need have repeated games and events to build

Exactly


Rememeber the RFL after the last World Cup here talking about a legacy etc etc yet what happened after? nothing.

The NRL take origin to Melbourne time and time again. Afl country and a region where players are not even eligible to play origin.

They take nrl games to South Australia and Perth. Not once but every year as the only way you can actually build something is by giving new markets a product to actually watch. It really isn't a difficult concept to grasp.

Not following up the 2013 World Cup Semi, the best test game in modern times with another game in London was an absolute scandal. Ive never heard so many non Northern accents at an RL game. RU would have invented a rematch or some 'historic' trophy to market a few months later as an excuse for another game.