It was a straight choice for me, Headingley Friday or Headingley Sunday.

Sunday won.

If the RFL had put as much effort into marketing the France game as they have this, you can guarantee that the crowd would have been much higher. This game has recieved probably the most intense marketing campaign I've ever seen from the RFL, while the France game was pretty much ignored.

Really?

it should be played on a saturday 3pm-teatime k-o,giving people time to get there and make a day of it(a bit of razmataz,a few stalls,refreshment tents,a few famous old faces mingling around,maybe a curtain raiser between say france & wales), rather then rush home from work and then travelling a few hours just to get there in time for ko.
the rl havent really marketed it well, as i know a lot with a passing interest in rl(and occasional supporters) who werent aware of it at all.
would a couple of full page ads in the national papers in the past week or so to drum up interest and attract potential new rl fans been to much for the rl to pay out.if you dont speculate you dont accumulate.

Yeah, but who cares about the result? I don't. I am mildly curious, but I'm not going to give up two hours of my weekend for it.

The RFL should stop trying to manufacture a fake rivalry, and should have persevered with the France fixture, except played it in France to give them some advantage.

whats the point in playing france and putting 60 points on them, france couldnt qualify for the 4 nations when they were not in automatically, they are of a poor standard and all the marketing in the world wouldnt convince me to go see them again

I agree that the mid-season test against France wasn't the right thing, it's just a comparison. I think France could give England a real scare at the end of the year though, especially if McNamara is still in charge.

Way more than 6.5k on.

The fact it's a Friday night and it's being held in Leeds pretty much cancels out any Aussies/Kiwis from attending.

Showing the game on Sky won't help either.

So what you are left with are the usual 'I only follow my SL Club' brigade (who won't bother going), the 'I support my country in RL and I'll follow them anywhere brigade' (who will be going) plus a random selection of people from the general M62 area who like RL and might turn up if theres nothing else going on and the rain stops

7k at the most for me tonight... quite a few of them for the novelty factor.

Shame really.

I would say double 7k easy there, pleasantly surprised at the attendance actually.

There is way more than 7K on there.

I would say about 12k at least.

But Bazza says ...........................




Not like him to be wide of the mark is it?

Shocker