Yes it would have been an opportunity that may never come our way again! Another decision by Thewlis that must never be Questioned.

Saints are easier to market than us !

Saints won the Grand Final. They're playing in the proper World Club Challenge game not some glorified friendly.

Oh, and in case you've forgotten, they have larger support than us with average crowds of about 4k or 5k more than us.

would have been a perfect way to try and increase our crowds and bring in new fans.. but we can just stick to the old tried and tested that we have been doing... we know that works we get a chance and earned the right but didnt want it

Earned the right to play a team from the NRL that hasnt qualified for the play offs for 3 years and finished 11th of 16 last year and 14th the year before that? Got to agree with the club on this one.

dont think many will be will wondering where they finished last season, i for one didnt know where they finished. its the name and comp and the attention it will get that we will miss out on, chance to attract new fans and put our club forward as one of the big boys in RL instead of letting the wigans and wires all the time, also we struggle to win big games... this would be classed as one and more experience when it comes to this is vital, but we can wait till the play offs again and fail i suppose.

No most people won't wonder where they finished last season cos they will have never heard of them. Most of the people in the town probably associate the NRL with Charlton Heston's cold dead hands

I really think you are hideously over estimating the pulling power of an obscure sporting team from the other side of the world in a glorified pre-season friendly. The only people likely to turn up would already be aware of the Giants or possibly fans of other Superleague sides in West Yorkshire who want to watch it, very few new fans would turn up unless brought by existing fans.

hey we will never know now, just abit annoying that we have to see all the build up for it and publicity when it should be us not warrington in .

costs of £180,000 the obvious reason why we arent in, our highest ever attendance only ever brought half that figure in!

but on the other hand we say we as a club want to be involved in the big games and win them, this was an opportunity to get more practice and make ourselves known as one of the bigger clubs but seems we are happy to just be the also rans here. Cant blame ken davy as he has put enough money in but then you go back us punching above our weight when we just dont have the cash available that the other clubs have.

Obscure teams from other side of world?? What planet u on??

To most people in hudds that's exactly what they will be.

i have to agree with the club on this one, yes it would have been a novelty for the existing fans to see us take on an NRL team, but when push comes to shove, £180,000 to host, what in effect would be a friendly game is a lot of money, money that i doubt the club, and /or Ken would be willing to part with.

we struggle to attract fans to games where we are within a game of the grand final, so i can't see how a friendly against opposition from Australia would bring in thousands of potential new fans.

if we wanted a friendly we could have offered any of the top sides a game without having to stump up £180,000 for it.

Could we have offered to pay for say Melbourne or NZ Warriors to come over. If we paid for their flights and accommodation it would have cost a fraction of the 180 grand for the wcc.
That may have attracted a good crowd that would have covered the costs or maybe even made us a few bob.

Maybe next year we should maybe look at not bottling it in the play offs, win the grand final then play the Aussies for real

I think some people seem to forget that this was nothing more than a friendly match, nothing at stake, nothing to win just a friendly ......a friendly at a huge cost to a club that struggles to attract fans/finances anyway.
yes we will never know if thousands of people who won't come and watch us play the big local teams in a game which means something will come and watch us play, to them, a non descript team from the other side of the world but i am presuming the club have considered this and have therefore presumed these people won't come !!.

Whenever the club does something to lose money it gets criticised for whatever it did so you can hardly complain that they're not prepared to risk losing money on something which only serves as a novelty purpose !.

Reports were this was a bond no a cost. When you fullfill your commitments, you get a bond back.