Ah its alright for you to label the m62 as a little street but we can't group everything south of us as together....you should get a job at the bbc

Like I said,apart from sale who will no doubt revert back to the little village id once the owner legs it and the Geordie outpost they have no foot hold in the north of england

The M62 corridor has a population in excess of 10million.
The equivalent of NSW and Qland, who also have 13 clubs.

What's the problem with a mainly localised top tier when the catchment is that large?

As said we have two clubs not in our regional heartland, as does RU, as does the NRL.

Point of accuracy: Craven park would be the furthest from the m62. 34km from Preston Road to North cave where the motorway starts.

Please, for the record, state where you believe Unions Regional Heartland is?

Leicester, Northampton, Worcester, Exeter, Gloucester, Bath, Reading, High Wycombe, Twickenham, Barnet are the other venues excluding Sales and Newcastle but I am struggling to figure out exactly what "region" you are attempting to lump them all in?

East Midlands covers 2 of them, Exeter is the West Country, Barnet and Twickenham are in Greater London, the Thames Valley holds Wycombe and Reading, Bath is technically the South West, as is Gloucester and Worcester is technically in the East Midlands.

Unless you're referring to "that there down south" which validates the lazy journalists report about League being am M62 pastime, I fail to see what "REGION" holds this mythical Union Heartland

Really? Geography not your strong point?

To be fair, Union has a much wider spread. More or less every settlement above small village size has a club, including in RL heartlands. The same cannot be said about RL. The debate about professional clubs' locations wholly misses the point. It is that spread of little clubs (and usually much more stable than amateur RL clubs) that ensures the big crowds at internationals. To say there are 10 million people in the North also misses the point, RL clubs are concentrated in tiny pockets within that area.

Wilkin makes a correct and fundamental point at the end of the BBC article. Another I'd add, is that our media profile would be helped if we stopped being thin-skinned. At least nowadays we're actually honest about the 2000 WC, but it took a long time for many. A self-confident sport is always full of arguments about, money, rules, structure, etc. but we seem absolutely paranoid about 'conflict'. Witness the uproar from those who would accuse Lenegan of almost treachery as if his comments somehow damage the RLWC. Or, conversely, listen to the way Eddie feels the need to constantly tell us how great the thing is that we're watching. Even the message boards here, whilst irrelevant in the scheme of things, betray the lack of confidence even we fans have - anyone saying 'negative' things is berated for 'talking the game down'. How paranoid must one be to give a d@@m about a post on a mesaage board?!? We need to not only give up some control, but also, as a sport, 'chill out' when it comes to the apparent need to defend or promote the quailty of the sport in our media profile. By which, somewhat paradoxically I suppose, I mean, yes, be very aggresive in chasing coverage, but stop being defensive ( to be fair to Nigel Wood - words I never thought I'd say - he handled the question about 2000 exactly right ) and stop feeling the need to bang on about how great the sport is. It doesn't work, it sounds desperate rather than confident. How often do you hear commentators (including in the press) from other major sports going on about how great the sport itself is? Market the players, the competitions, the clubs, the intrigue, the feuds, the controversies, but relax about marketing the sport for its own sake.

Bugger

I've touched on this in the past, but the prevalence of RU amateur clubs (especially in the north) should be something the RL embraces.

I am a member of a rugby union club. Because Union is slower paced and has a number of static set pieces t excel at, guys continue to play on well into their forties, meaning that my club, like man others, musters 4 teams each week and has over 100 registered players. That's not including the womens team and minis/juniors.
Rugby league, with its high pace and extra physicality, can't compete with this level of social rugby in terms of numbers playing. Indeed, many of our member used to play rugby league when they were younger men.
But what we can do is break down the barriers between the professional RL and the amateur rugby union clubs. When there's a union internatonal on the telly, the club bar will be full, but for the majority of the game, people will watch it with one eye, chatting with their pals rather than watching a scrum be reset over and over again. They'll look up when something exciting happens, but that about it.
Rugby league is a treat to watch in comparison, so if we were to become more accepted by the social rugby unions players, we would have a massive boost to our spectator pool.

I'm not criticising the ticket sales, as they've obviously been selling well, but the World cup is obvisouly a good starting point to get these union clubs interested, perhaps ticket deals for groups of 10 etc? There are a LOT of these clubs spread across the areas that world cup games are being held in. There's 3 rugby union clubs in the town St Helens, for instance.

He has a point, undermined by his "no cameras in the dressing room" nonsense.

I've had (non RL) people in the office asking me about the RLWC, based on seeing the BBC trailers, and they seem keen on watching the games on the BBC, whereas I don't think this exposure would have occured if the RLWC was on Sky.

Just heard a long advert on Radio1, shocked by how much the BBC is plugging it!

Me too.Its a bit of a shame all the games are not being telivised live by the BBC, even if they used BBC2 or 3 for the non England games.I think it would have got good numbers watching throughout the competition.Still, some is better than none.