Saw some decent rugby finishing with the superb Saints comeback but playing in front of an empty stadium in the heart of South Wales does the game few favours. The wife asked 'when does Super League start again?' thinking it was an exhibition or something.

Channel hopping between MM and the 6 Nations games (80000 for England to wallop a 4th rate country) shows the overall interest is limited at best.

I hope there is a good Welsh turnout today for the Crusaders match, even just 5000 of them sat together cheering them on would be a huge achievement. I can't see it though.

i actually fell asleep during the quins game.

I agree,now there's a surprise , it was an excellent afternoon's entertainment. It wasn't all top notch but you could see that the tackle area is going to be tidier this season. Warrington's discipline was shocking and it is already obvious which are the two best teams in the competition.

What you should added to your sentance Reffy is "at the moment". How can you say they are the best two teams after just one game? I would Wigans discipline wasn't the best in the last 20.

Don't see the point of it at all. Just an unnecessary extra game and a lot of extra expense for fans - well the ones that bother to go!

Much like Toulouses inclusion in the Championship

Why have it at the beginning of the season in the middle of the six nations Union games in a Union heartland? Absolute madness, just makes our game look so amateurish (again).

I can say it because this is a discussion forum. I would be very surprised if they weren't the top two at the end of the season.

yes at first but then it just got boring

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The promotion of RL in this country is run by a set of complete empty yeds

No matter what people think about the concept the fact is nobody wants to go and watch it Live, and the empty stadium speaks volumes .

But it was a sucsess cos the RFL say so.

From the outside in people must think great game but no body wants to watch it, an abject failure of the RFL to market the product.

For me the RFL need to rethink the selecting of stadiums think smaller grow bigger , no atmosphere in empty grounds and I bet the RFU will be rubbing their hands laughing at us AGAIN.

I just don't see the reason for it at all. They moan about how many games they play and this is just an extra one that isn't needed. Just play each other twice and thats it!

As far as I’m aware, Hull KR have just as many if not more regular Aussie starters than Catalans, do they get called East Hull Aussies?

The crowd hasn’t been great, but we’ve got some good free publicity with Mickey Rourke and Joe Calzaghe watching the game, and a movie coming up starring Mickey Rourke as Gareth Thomas. The viewing figures will tell us more about whether the event is worth it, the crowd doesn’t look great but people are just as likely to tune in and be impressed that we have celebrities watching the game.

When Saracen’s hired Wembley, a stadium not far from their own territory, I recall only 40,000 odd turning up with many tickets going for £10. Did Rugby Union fans decry the event as a pointless waste of time because Wembley was over half empty? In fact the event was bigged up and heavily promoted by the press, it was hailed as a success despite the fact that they didn’t recoup the money they paid to hire the place. Putting a positive spin on things has worked wonders for Union, you would think we could learn a trick or two from them when it comes to self promotion.



I thought Championship teams needed more games, not less? Extra revenue and all that.

Whilst I don't usually get too involved with commenting on what SL clubs do I do think MM is worth sticking at.

Its a additional game and probably the only place you could play it on a Wet February weekend would be at the Millenium Stadium in Cardiff with a closed roof.
Logistically they seem to handle it well.
In terms of season starts its a bit more high profile than each club kicking off on a bad weather weekend in Feb.
I also think if planned correctly (going head to head with RU 6 Nations was a daft idea) it could get decent support.
I'd keep at it, I remember similar criticisms of Internationals at Wembley (when we got circa 30-40,000), we moved back to more central stadiums and now class 25,000 at Wigan as a success when we play Australia.