Dave T

Yeah I think that's it. We were relatively close (as in a block away), I was relieved to see the official come over, speak to the stewards and give the ref the thumbs up.

If anything it can only have been shrapnel, but tbh quite quickly there were people near there laughing and no paramedics etc, so assume it didn't. Had it landed fully on somebody it would have very, very serious.

Yeah, it got hit with some force, but it really shouldn't have snapped off the bracket. It actually shook me up during the game.

Really horrible incident during the game. From one of Thewlis' conversions the ball hit a speaker that was hanging from the roof of the East stand. It snapped off and fell 30/40m to the ground. It was a miracle that nobody was hit, as underneath the speakers are the disabled seats. It genuinely would have killed somebody, and seeing it happen in real time was sickening. Thankfully nobody was hurt, but I expect there will be some safety checks at the ground this week.

Was an excellent atmosphere for a Catalans game. A good one for newbies, even in defeat.

I enjoyed it. We weren't at our best, it appeared that almost every mistake led to a try, Catalans were ruthless. Tactically far better than us. I think Burgess' naivity is showing, we play an awful lot like he wants us to have 13 Sam Burgess'. 4 forwards on the bench again, often 5 drives, flat passes at the line all afternoon, nothing from the dummy halves. Some work to do tactically. But I was very pleased that we were even in that, and possibly should have won it with a few minutes to go.

Yes, it was scrappier than I expected and I do think the pundits were going ott slightly, but I'm OK with them gushing over games tbh.

Superb game of rugby league. Lovely stuff.

You were right first time

This post was all going so well until you called me old

We appear to be having two conversations. I'm directly addressing you saying people are less interested in internationals these days and that is reflected in attendances. Nothing more than that. Happy to leave it there if you want to discuss other things, no probs mate.

It had zero effect on the area we were talking about. The Kiwis are no more attractive opposition to the Kangaroos.

I do however think that those 15k that were at Headingley the week earlier are more than aware of the cup game 7 days later.

The discussion we've been having is about England being less attractive than in yesteryear and people having no affinity. It has zero to do with NZ Warriors.

I'm not sure that's anything to do with a discussion on internationals.

England playing strong teams in well organised tournaments do well. I don't think that needs explaining. Some games will be more attractive than others, as they always have been and always will be.

I think we put too much onus on this. The Kiwis have a decent record vs the Aussies, besting them semi-regularly in finals, yet it hasn't really translated into huge Tests and the Aussies being more interested. Of course a win or two would be lovely, but as we see with the WCC and the tests they've lost against NZ and Tonga - they just don't really care. They have their own plan.

Higher than pretty much any other non-Aus/NZ Tests that we saw over the 80s and 90s, for a poorly organised and uninspiring Test series.

I'm not sure I see any evidence that people aren't interested in following England. Quite the opposite tbh.

It doesn't have to be free. There is also a bigger picture at play here. I'm not sure how many season tickets Leeds sell (10k maybe?). That means that maybe 5k paid cash the week earlier. By making the games all pay they reduces the attractiveness and many people don't want to attend (I'm one of them), as you know it's gonna be flat as anything. You don't have to add full value onto St prices, banking that cash is worth it.

We can't create this false narrative that demand has dropped off since the 80s and 90s. It simply isn't true. It plays into a narrative that allows things to be cancelled. Sure we had a small handful of 50k+ crowds over these 20 years (4 to be exact) but many of the other crowds were really low. In the last couple of decades we've seen World Cups deliver some very good events, huge crowds for neutral finals, 67k for the Semis at Wembley, 45k in London for a Kiwi test as well. The demand is still there.

I don't agree with this. Test crowds compare very well. Crowds for some of the World Cup games just couldn't have been dreamt of back in the 80s.

I could have lived with one of the three tests being ambitious I. E. London and the other two being safe, but in reality there is no such thing as safe for England rl. They were rubbish.

Yeah, three test series are not for me personally. I loved the 4N and would like to have seen that potentially grow to 6N. I think the RFL has to shoulder a fair bit of blame here. For years we've had to work with an aggressive partner in the Aussies, yet we've delivered half decent home tournaments that have made it harder for them to sack them off. We built the Tri/4N off, but then they flatlined at best as we became less ambitious. The last World Cup was horrible. A truly flat tournament with the odd glimmer. And then the Tonga series was lacklustre at best. It's made it easy for the Aussies to sack off the travel and keep their players on their shores.