I might wear my wires shirt and my catalan hat just to confuse everyone!

Wherever the game is played the attendance will not be as high as most expect because of two things. One Catalans won't bring thousands to the game for obvious reasons. Two Catalans are a poor shadow of the team they were. Add a third, neutral fans will be limited because its Catalans. Warrington will do well to fill the space. Will the appetite of our "floating fans" be as big as last year for a game against the Catalans? Look at a home game when we play them without all the freebie stuff to get extra fans in.

For the neutrals that attended the Catalan Wigan semi, we added to the atmosphere of what turned out to be a great game, especially for Catalan. In the West stand that day I saw fans with Saints, leigh, Widnes and Wire tops, all there with the one cause to cheer on the underdog against the mighty Wgan.

Not saying I want the underdog to win on this occasion but as others have implied most neutrals will want Catalan to beat us, call it 'healthy rivalry'.

I can't see this game selling out between Wire and Cats fans, a crowd of 10000 perhaps so how about the RFL allocating the a number of free tickets to the local Championship teams, they can then give them to their deserving fans. A full Widnes or Leigh will look better and generate a better atmosphere on the day.

On that point, and whats already been mentioned, you'd think widnes would attempt to emulate what warrington did in 07 and try and encourage some widnes fans to turn up and support the dragons, i believe it didn't hurt our pretty good reputation with the RFL and it wouldn't hurt widnes to get on the RFL's good side with licence applications coming up.

I cannot see Widnes encouraging their supporters to support Catalan, the team that basically got them thrown out of Super League!

are you a widnes fan in disguise?

widnes playing and finishing in the relegation spot got them relegated from SL.

widnes fans would support their mother in laws if they were playing us.

Good points Cat, if you remember we as a club and fans took a lot of criticism off Wigan for openly supporting Catalan at the HJ. I'm sure the club did it to promote ticket sales to the neutral.

Anyway Widnes could score some browny points by promoting the game and they may well do some promotiom, there is plenty of time yet. Same with Leigh if it was to be held there, although I suppose Leigh have the international next week.

To be fair they ended up in 11th place, and not bottom which was the previous relegation system. I guess you wouldn't have minded if we had gone down in 2002 on a similar basis?

Widnes are a changed club now, new owner, plans for the future. If you were to run a poll, I would guess more Widnes fans have a disliking for the Wire than Catalan. Wire and Widnes rivalry goes back a lot longer than 5 years ago.

The fans and club will probably have stronger feelings about the promotion of the crusaders into SL last year.

the RFL are dragging this naming the venues out arent they.

Considering the permutations of 4 teams it would be a huge task for the Red Hall think tank. I bet they've having beer and sandwiches in massive quantities delivered since Monday. These things take time to get right you know.
Nigel Wood - can we have a semi at your ground on the 8th August?
Steve O'Connor - course you can mate.
Nigel Wood - oh good thanks, I'll let you know the day before.

It does seem daft doesn't it? There were only 3 permutations possible so venues could have been decided in advance for each option.

Maybe the RFL asked Warrington where they would like the game to be played?

And until last night I felt the same about Widnes. However, I think it's because Cull is the coach, but I realised I wanted them to win. Oh dear.