Or better still, are people too scared to pick up a phone these days?

McNamara was on talksport tonight and said it was around 47k sold

Just bought a ticket.

I 'assume' it won't be posted out at this late stage, and will be 'collect at the gate'.

Of course, the RFL website (and the confirmation email I received) make no mention of this.

I emailed to query this, and will try to ring in the morning (if I can get through).

Game is being shown live in Australia on Foxsports after the embarrassing cock up over the tv rights in first game. www.nrl.com/inside-the-mad-scram ... fault.aspx

Game is being shown live in Australia on Foxsports after the embarrassing cock up over the tv rights in first game. www.nrl.com/inside-the-mad-scram ... fault.aspx

Hope we can hit 50k. Just because it sounds better, it's still a very impressive effort, last time the Kiwis toured the UK the games got 16k, 20k and 21k at Hudds, Hull and Wigan in better economic times. We've already smashed that figure before the 2nd test is played.

Don't worry someone will be along soon to tell us why this is bad news.

It's RL after all!

England Union get 80k.

Therefore League is a joke and must have the p!ss taken out of it at all times regardless of improvement or good things happening. I will also criticise and ridicule the sport for doing exactly the same thing as Union re double headers and announced attendances.











Sorry everyone. I miss Gutterfax.

Considering the small amount of promotion in London we have to be happy with them numbers. Wish the RFL would see that with bigger promotion and marketing the sport can achieve more in London.

Nigel wood made the back of City AM newspaper today. It's a free London business paper so its a good look.

Nigel is saying how important London is etc etc and they are planning more London rugby league events over next two years.

Quote: kobashi "Considering the small amount of promotion in London we have to be happy with them numbers. Wish the RFL would see that with bigger promotion and marketing the sport can achieve more in London. Nigel wood made the back of City AM newspaper today. It's a free London business paper so its a good look. Nigel is saying how important London is etc etc and they are planning more London rugby league events over next two years.'" Free pdf available here: www.cityam.com/edition. Quite a good article IMO.

Quote: kobashi "Considering the small amount of promotion in London we have to be happy with them numbers. Wish the RFL would see that with bigger promotion and marketing the sport can achieve more in London. Nigel wood made the back of City AM newspaper today. It's a free London business paper so its a good look. Nigel is saying how important London is etc etc and they are planning more London rugby league events over next two years.'" Free pdf available here: www.cityam.com/edition. Quite a good article IMO.

looking at past series between us and Australia / NZ, IF we can get 50k tomorrow and the last game is a sell out as it looks like being, we should have touching 100k for the 3 games played.That would put the attendance figures at well over 30k more than any other series against NZ since 1970 and infact it would compare favourably with the heyday of the early 90's series with Australia, and those were the days when we included Old Trafford and Wembley in the grounds used. If the RFL had used the Etihad stadium for example as well as the Olympic this time, who knows where we could be maybe pushing 120/130k overall which would be up there with the best ever.As it is, i think crowds wise we have done well this time out and it's something to build on.Hopefully it will convince the RFL to think even bigger next time we hold a series over here. Stats below are taken from RL Project - host team first followed by series winners


Ashes Series 1970 Australia Great Britain 165,027
Ashes Series 1973/74 England Drawn 36,567
Ashes Series 1974 Australia Australia 133,791
Ashes Series 1978/79 England Australia 75,009
Ashes Series 1979 Australia Australia 66,752
Ashes Series 1982 England Australia 67,215
Ashes Series 1984 Australia Australia 75,480
Ashes Series 1986 England Australia 101,560
Ashes Series 1988 Australia Australia 67,554
Ashes Series 1990 England Australia 133,684
Ashes Series 1992 Australia Australia 103,459
Ashes Series 1994 England Australia 140,432
Ashes Series 2001 England Australia 68,921
Ashes Series 2003 England Australia 73,887


New Zealand vs Great Britain 1970 New Zealand Great Britain 37,685
Great Britain vs New Zealand 1971 England New Zealand 13,351
New Zealand vs Great Britain 1974 New Zealand Great Britain 28,356
New Zealand vs Great Britain 1979 New Zealand Great Britain 24,500
Great Britain vs New Zealand 1980 England Great Britain 26,187
New Zealand vs Great Britain 1984 New Zealand New Zealand 28,029
Great Britain vs New Zealand 1985 England New Zealand 50,306
Great Britain vs New Zealand 1989 England Great Britain 51,619
New Zealand vs Great Britain 1990 New Zealand Great Britain 19,049
New Zealand vs Great Britain 1992 New Zealand Great Britain 21,771
Great Britain vs New Zealand 1993 England Great Britain 67,772
New Zealand vs Great Britain 1996 New Zealand New Zealand 33,000
Great Britain vs New Zealand 1998 England New Zealand 59,203
Great Britain vs New Zealand 2002 England New Zealand 62,505
Great Britain vs New Zealand 2007 England Great Britain 58,081

We always seem to be building for something else. Always seems to be, at best, building blocks.

Like the WCC we are going to go from one game selling 40k to 3 selling 60k and celebrate it as a great building block.

When are we going to try something ambitious and then put the time and effort and money in making it succeed?

I agree Smokey, If we had an international calendar set in stone like the other code does then we may go some way to keeping the momentum going. We need to be having 3 test series against the big 2 at least every other year imo to do this. 4 nations just once in the 4 year cycle and obviously a WC. We really need Australia to start buying into International RL more, obviously for this to happen England need to start beating them to make them sit up and take notice again .I don't think we are too far away these days on that front.

Well I have just read on sky sports that Australia if we beat new Zealand will be down to third place and they do not like that one bit so they are after a full time coach, so they might want to play tests to try and put them back to number 1

To be fair to the much-criticised RFL, I got a clarifying email this morning confirming that I should collect from the ticket office and where it is located.

That would be fantastic, International RL needs to get some rivalry,fire and needle back in it again, we have sat back and had our tummys tickled for far, far too long.