Every time that Catalan get this far in the Challenge Cup it seems we get the same people chirping up about how any Semi Final involving them "has to be in France" (or occasionally they say Barcelona).

The Semi Finals nowadays are a hard and rushed thing to sell to fans of the competing teams (neutrals as a rule are not interested and why would they be with a big final to go to instead a few weeks later). The fans of the teams involved don't know that their teams are involved until a couple of weeks before and have little time to buy tickets, interest is generally waning for the cup (bar the Final) and with two Finals to possibly attend over the next 10 weeks some will decide to save their money for those. Getting fans to attend is hard enough and these people (in the UK) will have club affiliations to draw them and will be familiar with the Cup and its history.

Trying to suddenly draw a crowd of curious people in a French city with no SL (or Championship) team in it to a game (in a competition they do not know of) that didn't exist as an event in that city until two weeks before it is played and expecting a crowd larger than one that would come to a venue in this country would be idiocy. The games in Toulouse and Montpellier and Barcelona in the past were all set in stone in the fixture list well in advance so could be adequately planned for by fans and advertised by the club and local councils. Even the Perpignan faithful would not be guaranteed to travel to such a hastily arranged Semi Final (distances between Perpignan and potential venues are a lot greater in France than over here). What are attendances for home cup games in Perpignan like? Do the French care about the Cup?

The only instance where a Semi Final involving the Catalans would be likely to draw a greater crowd in France than in the UK would be one against London Broncos/Sheffield who have a much, much worse home average attendance than the Catalan club (the Eagles also already have one Final to attend around the same time). If it happens that Catalan v London/Sheffield is one of the Semi Finals then it is worth taking the risk of trying a French venue to see if interest (for the Cup) is there. Any other opponent would be able to reliably draw a crowd of similar size to recent Semi Finals in this country and there would be no need to risk the experiment and possibly end up with a poorer crowd by playing it outside the M62 corridor.

That would all make sense if crowds at British semi finals were worth boasting about. They're not. So this whole "history with the cup" and "tradition" will draw some kind of crowd arguments don't really stack up, especially since not only has there been no equivalent game to compare to in France, you have yourself admitted you don't even know what kind of crowds the French sides get at home in the cup.

The whole posts is just a long winded scream of "not outside my backyard".

Brixton Wire wrote:


Out of interest, If there was a London v Catalans SF, where would it be played?


Huddersfield. Probably.


They won,t mark the pitch out properly

And neither would we want to!

Ricoh Arena, we'd probably get that at a heavy discount considering all the troubles down in Coventry.

Heard that might be the plan, though of course London wont be in the semi-finals! (hopefully!)

brummie-eagle wrote


Sheffield wont play a semi final at Huddersfield!



If they get to the SF they will play where they are told

when is the draw

when is the draw

It is true in as much as the RFL will probably opt for a smaller ground for a fixture involving Sheffield.

Les Catalans v London/Sheffield/Widnes - Toulouse
Sheffield/London v Widnes - Salford City Stadium
Anything else - One at Leeds, one at St Helens

I'd rather drink bleach

Put the bleach away, it aint happening!

Probably after the quarter finals have been played.