It might be better if the french public dont see this performance

You are probably right.

Because their nearest pro RL side is hundreds of miles away. It'd be like an England game being played in Bristol.

French fans were very enthusiastic though - plenty of free tickets dished out (vouchers on car windscreens) but only saw one advertisement for the game on the Metro, and I only spotted that one after the game!

Or like the RFU staging a game at Old Trafford and officially selling 40,000 tickets.
Even though people at the ground estimated the crowd to be quite a bit less than that.

Because the freebies were in voucher form, they could only actually be included in the attendance if exchanged for a ticket, so it is the true figure (and almost exactly what I predicted when in the ground )

Think they need to take their Four Nations games to established RL areas though to make it as intimidating as possible and therefore a greater chance of at least keeping the score respectable.

What was the actual attendance?

7,300ish I think.

Stade Francais rarely fill it either.

That's right. They fill the bigger stadiums in the city instead half of the time

It cost very little on Saturday night (I paid a whole 5E but tons of freebies floating about by all accounts), but just how many would have attended had the game been played at the Stoop, for example? And that's with a local pro RL team to boost the crowd.

Got to say well done to the French for advertising on The Metro, we saw 8 posters around, and I'm pretty sure there were more, they definitely added a few onto the gate, and the very cheap pricing also was a good idea.

They certainly opened the eyes of an American friend of mine who is at Uni in Paris, to Rugby League.


7,369 was quite a good turnout.

BUT The French Media coverage was awful, can't speak for TV but L'Equipe (French sporting newspaper) gave us no mentions in their friday edition, and only a 3 inch match report on Sunday. Le Parisien had nothing at all on Sunday, not even the score.

I know the French got hammered, and all sport was massively put in the shadows by the French XV team beating the All Blacks, but they could have done better, especially before the match.


I had a great weekend though, If anyone is thinking about doing it next time. DO IT!

it's the same all the time with french press

What he said. And shame on rugby league for the rest of the clubs in our country being outnumbered by Quins fans on Saturday