The semi final where Australia played New Zealand at Huddersfield produced a 20,000 crowd and extra time. A couple of semi finals between England and Wales produced good crowds and fairly close games.

Looking at possible 4th teams for the semi finals to go along with the big three, Samoa, Italy and Papua New Guinea and not forgetting last competitions semi finalist Fiji, all seem to be reasonably strong teams which will have a decent contingent of heritage Australians and could produced a competitive semi final and Wales, Ireland, Scotland or Tonga might make a decent fist of it in quarter finals.

The only teams that might be completely outclassed are USA and the Cook Islands but it is great for them that they get a chance to play in the competition and their presence shows to the world the expanding reach of international RL.

Samoa are playing tonga this week in a warm up, not sure if it is on TV?

They produced close semi finals in the days when the likes of Davies, Devereux and Gibbs were in the Wales teams. They now have a team made up largely of championship 1 and Aussie minor league players. Last year a meeting between the two ended in an 80 point thumping.

Those nations may have "reasonably strong teams" but they are not reasonably strong when compared with Australia or NZ who they may have to face in the knockout games. They will almost certainly get a pasting against those two (England have had a few of those and they are ranked 3rd best). RL is not like soccer or RU where a weaker team can stifle their opponent and just keep the ball to keep it close. Where one team is clearly better than the other the winning margin is almost always massive. That won't look good on tv and casual/new to RL viewers will lose interest and turn off. They won't care about the classy full back play of Slater or the brilliance of Marshall as they won't know of those players beforehand so won't have tuned in to see them perform. All the new viewer will see is one team getting torn apart and a rapidly decided result. Those games that are likely to be one sided will come across better when edited for the highlights shows.

As I said in my earlier post if the draw throws up what looks like a close, entertaining game such as Fiji v PNG and the BBC have the option to show that game then they will take up that option and the free to air audience will see it. The games the BBC have chosen will show the tournament in its best light to the new, curious viewers of the sport that make up most of the BBC's audience. The games they have not chosen (as yet) are likely in the main to only expose the gulf in class at international level and make our WC look like a sham. The other games are better kept largely out of the full public glare.

This. Though I have the feeling this is one the RFL couldn't win, even if every game were screened live on every channel.

So we get all the big games FTA with probably very decent crowds on the beeb and ALL of the games on premier sports the home of Rugby League. I am a very happy premier sports subscriber

74,500 capacity for the opening game, 25,500 at the KC Stadium, 24,500 in the John Smiths stadium, 25,000 at the probable QF in Wigan, 90,000 at Wembley and 75,000 at the Final.

Potentially 314,500 seats to sell to those 6 games alone......Hull, Hudds and Wigan will be full stadiums, as should be Old Trafford.....I believe the real problem lies in the 2 bigger stadiums which will look terrible unless they are 2/3 full IMO.


You and a couple of thousand others......but unless the BBC Highlights programes are top notch, then very few new fans will be attracted to the game as a result of it being on Premier Sports.

Also, on the topic of BBC and their highlights, when interviewing players from Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Fiji etc....please god they'll interview players from Ireland, Scotland, Italy, Fiji etc and not English or Aussies......

I echo that sentiment, the viewers should at least know that some of those players come from the country they represent. The BBC though will most likely go for the big name heritage players that they think viewers will have heard of. The onus IMO is on the competition organisers and governing bodies to push forward those actual Irish, Scots, Italians, Fijians, Americans etc to take part in doing the promotional work pre-tournament and post match. Get the BBC to have these players as guests on their highlights shows, get them doing things like the online stuff Charnley and Hardaker did and so on.

No, I would have settled for a deal that meant the tournament was at least accessible to a majority of people. Having up to 80% of the tournament hidden away on a tiny, subscription-only channel that the majority will have never heard of let alone subscribe to is hardly a good result for the sport.

Should have made it avail on the internet. Reckon plenty of fans around the world would have paid 20quid to watch every game online

Now that this is signed up are we any closer at determining when the kick off times will actually be?

as I mentioned in another thread, England v Ireland and England v Fiji, together with the probable England QF will go head to head with SKY TV's coverage of the other lot at Twickenham. It will be interesting to see which way they go...avoid or go head to head?

I hear what you are saying Gutterfax but the beeb would never show all the matches and sky do not seem interested. So If you are premier sports subscriber you win. Lets be honest though, we only want games on FTA that will be good adverts for the game with good crowds and exciting rugby. Well it is up to us to get to the big stadiums and fill them. I know i will beicon_smile.gif

Premier Sports on Twitter today announced that they have now launched their subscription online service. If it works ok then those with Virgin or any other service should now be able to watch all their matches: www.premierplayer.tv/

Premier Sports on Twitter today announced that they have now launched their subscription online service. If it works ok then those with Virgin or any other service should now be able to watch all their matches: www.premierplayer.tv/