Agreed. the actual WC was a big success. What happened afterwards was the problem. Great crowd at Bristol and absolutely nothing afterwards.
St James Park has to stage a big game. We've some foundations there with the Magic weekend and the Newcastle Thunder.

Good to see the government putting in £15 million into the WC and £10 million into improving facilities. Lets hope it is spend wisely.

Last time I checked Toronto wasn't in England

Why on earth do they use Workington for the Scotland games? The ground is an absolute dump. Try a Tyneside venue, maybe Newcastle's RU groundshare stadium.

I would also suggest Halifax over Bradford for a Cat C game. The East Stand facilities are outstanding and spectators are more comfortable with a roof over them.

Again, if England are hosts, then no Welsh, Scottish, Irish, Canadian or French Stadia, Thank you. ENGLAND are the hosts.

IIRC that is the way it is being organised and when the bid was announced it was stated that all games were to be held in England. There was a list of venues given along with the bid announcement (or very soon after it) from which it was stated that the 12 venues would be chosen. All of those on that list were in England and Bristol and Workington were not among them.

Rank the teams 1-16 using the world rankings and have groups as below. All teams play the rest of the group once, none of this confusing inter group stuff:

A: Australia, England, New Zealand, R16 (3 go to QFs) – England v Aus opener at Wembley, England v NZ at Villa Park
B: R4, R6, R9, R11 (2 go to QFs)
C: R5, R7, R10, R12 (2 go to QFs)
D: R8, R13, R14, R15 (1 goes to QFs)

QF1 – 1A v 1D – Headingley
QF2 – 1B v 1C – Langtree Park
QF3 – 2A v 2C – John Smiths
QF4 – 3A v 2B – DW

SF1 – Winner QF1 v Winner QF2 – St James Park
SF2 – Winner QF3 v Winner QF4 – St James Park

Final – Winner SF1 v Winner SF 2 – Old Trafford

I’d be concerned about selling out the final if we stick it at Wembley and England don’t get there so Old Trafford (obviously closer for the majority of SL fans) makes sense. Market the hell out of that opener and we should really be looking to get close to a sell-out. NZ game at Villa Park as I think Birmingham is a major untapped market.

I’ve deliberately not put games England are guaranteed to be in within SL towns as I’m hoping it would encourage people to either travel to Wembley/Villa Park/St James Park or buy tickets to their local group games which would otherwise struggle to sell. Then when it is known what QF England are in, they are all on people’s doorsteps so they will be more likely to buy last minute. There’s an opportunity there to put four unattractive group games at the four QF venues and offer ‘buy one, get the other half price’ deals.

The pool games last time seemed pretty well thought out overall so I’d go similar again. Taking France games to France and Wales in Wrexham would make sense. USA at Bristol and Fiji at Rochdale worked really well so do that again. I wouldn’t be taking Australia v Ireland to Limerick in front of 5k again though, and AJ Bell is too much of a pain in the . Do Scotland not have anywhere well suited to a pool game? Murrayfield obviously miles too big.

Brilliant. The World Cup is coming to England and you want to push it somewhere else. I wonder if the World Cup went to the USA or Canada would want England games in England?

And let's not forget Rugby League is behind Football, Rugby Union, Cricket, F1, Tennis, Women's Football (and probably a lot more) in this country.

Newcastle Falcons Kingston Park has an artificial pitch, so can't be used for international RL (as things stand, things may change in the next 7 years) likewise Widnes is a no-go for smaller fixtures.

I think doing a double header with an England game at St James' Park would work. As for Scotland itself surely one of Edinburgh's football grounds is the best option for Transport.

Yeah but let's be honest, it's in the interests of the English game to have a fixture like France v Tonga in Avignon or Toulouse for instance. What does the English game gain by having that in say Leigh or Halifax instead? Or if it was Wales v Samoa, it's better to be in Wrexham/Cardiff as opposed to having it in somewhere like Widnes.

I agree.

If the developing nations are to have their own identities then they shouldn't be compromised being a host for an England WC.

How would Welsh rugby league be compromised by playing a fixture like Wales v Tonga in Wrexham instead of Lancashire? Completely rubbish argument.

Because it's an England hosted RLWC NOT a home nations hosted RLWC.

What about when the 2007 union world cup was hosted in France yet France played a quarter final against New Zealand in Cardiff! I'm sure that massively compromised French and Welsh rugby union didn't it?

I couldn't care less what the RU did, if the developing nations are to develop they they have to stop being thrown the scraps from the big boys table.

World cup played in front of empty stadia where nobody cares about the game, yeah brilliant idea

people have already said we should be playing games around the UK and trying to fill Wembley for the final so give up with your predictable parochial argument you bring to every thread its getting boring.

So please tell us exactly how they should develop ?