well my point is that they dont talk about attendances because they know they have a redoubt of probably irreducible support they can go back to and the occasionally badly supported game does no real harm. we seem on the brink of endless self doubt where even the most league of areas and fans have to be constantly cajoled into supporting the sport.
Yeah i hope the authorities grasp the point that giving the pacific and european an entry into the four nations instantly creates a 1000x more credibility and focus. Personally i think it should be a 6 nations with both tournys providing qualification every two years. I don't understand why that hasnt already been decided. Even if its png and france every time we suddenly have 4 credible international tournaments.

I would say the opposite. It's precisely because we are so passionate that it fuels our constant and often irrational moaning about our sport. Only the Premier League in football matches the quality of product on display and even then if you did a deconstruction of the volume of entertainment Super League would win hands down. There no other sport provides so many thrills, skills, feats of strength, resilience or displays of fortitude yet we find endless ways of complaining about it and dragging it down. Hence, we'll find all sorts of excuses not to go and support our sport when really we have a lot less reason to.

I was talking about rugby league as a whole, not just the international game.
I'd imagine a Six Nations tournament will only happen after the gap between the competing nations has been significantly bridged. Let's make sure the Pacific and European Cups both succeed before we move onto exapnding the Four Nations.

but isnt the product and predicatability getting a bit stale???

last nights game was woefully short of skill factor, and those are the teams that wil supply the majority of the english team.

the only game with any real focus is NZ v Aud and thats been moved south, again!!

my main worry about the game at present is the complete lack of any stars in the uk / english game, probably gareth ellis is only one close and hes playing in aus!!

yes id go a long way to see billy slater play live and pay good money, but england, nah thanks!

Go to the JJB and you can see Billy Slater till your heart's content.

If can get every game in the competition to be as intense and competitive as last night's I would be happy to pay to watch any game in Super League. We have to get our competition to that point and then move it foward again in the same way the Australians do.

We're about ten years behind the NRL and last night's Grand Final was certainly more of that decade old NRL standard than any other we've had. As I've said on other threads, in the past good teams could commit errors like Saints made and still get away with. At the highest level in our competition you cannot make these mistakes because you get punshied and usually lose because of them. When every game in the competition is like that then we'll be somewhere.

If people are saying they don't want to get to a stage where it is like that then perhaps we need to review what kind of sport we want. I think we're heading in the right direction by pushing teams towards perfecting a no-mistake approach and when we're there we should look at what we can do to make the game more open. It's how most of the best sports have evolved e.g. American Football, baseball, soccer.

or put it another way have 13 forwards and no backs!

Why not just reduce the number of interchanges instead?

now thats a thought!

and a very good one!

half it to 6??

would open game up a lot!

Ive got a better one, 2 referees??

I seem to remember 50,000 at Old Trafford v the Kanagroos in 1986 for a game everyone expected to lose (which indeed we did) so it can't just be the prospect of defeat that's turning people off.

rlSt Helens star Kyle Eastmond is set for an England call-up for the Gillette Four Nations series.rl

Talk about prices is all very well, but given that there's a Royal Mail strike in the offing , how do the RFL propose to get the tickets out?

I would have willingly paid these prices if there had been an international at the KC, however, as Paul Duffen decided that Hull won't be having RL internationals, I won't be travelling AND paying top dollar.

Thanks Paul, hope it all works out well for your precious Tiggers.

I would imagine they will tell you can pick them up at the stadiums ticket office i wouldnt like to be working in the ticket office on match day tho.