While I have my doubts about the format (felt the previous setup of two good groups and two poor ones was better for close games) I think they've done well with the scheduling.

England - Samoa at St James' and Australia - Fiji at the KCOM is a strong opening day, Cook Islands - Tonga at the home of Captain Cook in Middlesbrough gets some attention, Jamaica at Leeds makes sense with a strong Caribbean community there.

Some big grounds to fill and have to hope the marketing for once is up to scratch. Need to see good promo early on not last minute promo codes and desperation.

rlhttps://www.rlwc2021.com/schedulerl

I think there are some really poor venue choices there. Middlesbrough, Coventry, Sheffield, Newcastle, Liverpool, Arsenal. Too many novelty expansion venues. Also Elland Road has a Wooden seated stand with pillars obscuring views. It was a good stadium in the 1980's it's really not now.

Going to be very hard to sell tickets given that many people will wait until the current Covid situation becomes clearer before investing in more tickets that potentially are money down the drain.

While I agree the venues are ambitious, part of the reason for the choices was that the government funds were only granted if almost all the games were staged in the North. Unlike last time where they used Wales, France, Limerick and Bristol.

Agree that tickets will be a hard sell due to Covid but not a lot else they can do, this event was arranged about 5 years ago.

Agree that Elland Road is too old, but it's will be the non-England semi final so they have to put it in the heartlands to shift tickets, and the M62 doesn't have a lot of 30k+ grounds. Manchester, Liverpool and Newcastle are of course hosting other high profile games already.

Hopefully Leeds being back in the Premier League prompts a few improvements, Hull and Middlesbrough had to invest in new floodlights, new media areas etc despite their grounds being fairly young.

Tickets went on sale today and so did the draw for a pair of the 20,000 free tickets for keyworkers. You just need to list three games you're interested in and attach proof of who you work for. All I did was upload a copy of my payslip with the personal bits blanked out. https://www.rlwc2021.com/keyworkerapply

Tickets went on sale today and so did the draw for a pair of the 20,000 free tickets for keyworkers. You just need to list three games you're interested in and attach proof of who you work for. All I did was upload a copy of my payslip with the personal bits blanked out. https://www.rlwc2021.com/keyworkerapply

We have this idea of wanting to play at big football grounds for some reason. England v Greece at Bramall Lane? Be lucky if we need more than one stand opening.

Its a difficult balance as sometimes theyve gone too small and that doesnt inspire ticket buyers either, such as England games at Leigh. But I do agree the Greece game will be a hard sell, anyone with a slight knowlege of Rugby knows they dont really play it. Should have stuck to the KCOM/John Smiths/DW for that one.

Bought tickets for the last few world cups on the day they went on sale, was planning on doing the same for this one, but then I found out they won't sell tickets for specific seats until next year (when prices go up). Not keen on buying a ticket that will be allocated a seat later, as you don't even know what part of the ground you will end up in.

Even though it was a so-called priority window, they only had limited seats in each category, so even if I was willing to buy, the price I wanted to pay was also unavailable for the size of group I would be going to the game in.

A real shame they are making it difficult to buy the tickets I want

Has anybody bought tickets yet? Apparently, I missed the priority slot - largely because when I looked when it first opened I was struggling to see the wood for the trees / get the site to work; and then I went on holiday and forgot.
Why are they leaving it until 23 October to re-open sales? Surely, after the BBCs plugging today and a great game in front of a national audience it should have been open to buy today? I for one would have bought tickets. I’ll forget when 23 October comes around as I’ll be too busy.
Do people think it’ll actually go ahead with spectator? I am doubtful - I think Covid will be with us next Autumn.

Technically you can't buy tickets this year, you can enter the ballot to be allocated tickets once it opens, but your seats will be allocated later. That may be fine for most, but prevented me from giving them my money.

Also of relevance, prices go up in 2021.

The prices already seem pretty steep in A, B and C at a lot of venues. Given most are in the North and so likely to appeal to the existing fan base, I’m not convinced they’ll sell too well as people won’t want to be paying those prices to attend several matches, especially for non-England games. Going to need to attract new punters but I’m not convinced people will travel from the South except for the final.

Steep? They want £70 to watch England play Greece. I'd call that daylight robbery/rank stupidity

They start at £15, from what I've seen.

So we'll sell a load of the £15 tickets (behind the goal i assume) none of the £70 tickets (on the side) and have the camera aimed at an empty stand.