FearTheVee

Yeah I agree with that

Who do we reckon commissioned the study?

It’s an Ashes series - I don’t care where the players are in their career, I care about winning the series. Pick the best players, end of. Next year is next year. I’d say there are probably 5 or 6 props in the squad who are demonstrably inferior to Walmsley IMO (albeit acknowledging you need different types of props on there).

He’s still comfortably the best prop at Saints and two others from Saints have been selected ahead of him. He’s still comfortably the top metre eating prop in SL IMO. Take 300m off him for Salford if you like - he’d still be ahead of any other prop for metres. He’s been excellent.

Not picking Walmsley is crackers

Nobody seems to mention we have Hull KR 3 times too . . . . ? But yes I hate the loop fixtures and it is inevitable that they will impact the ladder in a meaningful way most years.

Yep, then Leeds again in a couple of weeks. Across a block of just FIVE games, we play both Salford and Leeds twice. Absolutely nonsensical.

Yes for sure there will be restrictions on ability to contact them, but I'm more interested in how realistic it actualy is to be ringing people trying to sell thirty/forty quick tickets vs the cost of the people sat in the char making the calls. As someone else has said previously, I understand it for high margin hospitality etc but generally I can't see it making much sense commercially.

Indeed it is but I suspect any marginal profit on ticket sales would be more than swallowed by the cost of the approach. It's no coincidence that we get emails rather than calls about these events.

The deflective false-equivalence with some pics of McManus is pretty daft. Beaumont deliberately sought to ruin a post-match interview with a head coach on live TV, with his chosen method being "drunken moron". The McManus pics posted are of a chairman celebrating winning a trophy with his team/supporters, not deliberately ruining post-match coach interviews in a weekly round game. But then everyone knows that, including the person who posted them. DB's actions were embarrassing, unprofessional and rude. It's as simple as that.

Some key injuries at the wrong time for Saints but Salford this week is as close to a gimme as you can get. Then four big games out of five coming up in terms of the playoffs: Hull FC (H), Leeds (A), Leigh (H) and Wakey (A). Think we need to beat Hull and Wakey as a minimum out of those games to be confident of making the 6, and there is absolutely no guarantee we will beat either. This is the first year I've genuinely thought we might miss the play-offs but I take some comfort from the fact that despite how bad we've been against the better teams for some time now, I do think the team is still playing for Wellens and isn't a lost cause just yet.

Whist (rightly) complimenting the production, can we also point out just how terrible it is to watch players kicking for touch in a massive game to the backdrop of speakers blaring out Journey's don't stop believing or some other risible noise pollution?

Whilst injuries aren't helpful (think latest count is Welsby, Murphy, Percival, Whitby, Bell, Bachelor, possibly Sironen and Hurrell working his way back from long-term injury at Bradford) our form is poor against any team with a pulse anyway. We have a team out that should be able to complete, but I'm not sure it will. Think Leeds by 14+ I'd go: Sailor Feldt, Robertson, Cross, Dagnall Lomax, Mbye Walmsley, Clark, Lees Sironen, Whitley Knowles Subs: Wingfield, Delaney, Stephens, Burns If no Sironen, Wingfield into the XIII and Paasi onto the bench.

Well the last ashes series sold 75k tickets and we sold about that many over two tests in a few weeks before we even consider selling say 35k tickets at wembley with over four months to go. So something is definitely better, or something at least definitely feels better about the approach. I accept that part of the pull is scarceity of the ashes concept given 20+ years since the last one, whereas in 2003 there was only two years since the last 3 match series. There is more ambition behind this and the ticketing approach, announcements etc have been better than most series I can remember.

Yeah - all fair points, was sure I'd read Moran was involved but perhaps not

That's fair - but isn't Moran's mob essentially leading this so it is different from the off?

I'm wiling to give the organisers the benefit of the doubt. They will rightly be judged on the crowds and profits at the end of the series and also on what future behaviours that approach breeds (positive and negative) If changes have been made then based on where we are so far with this series I'm very happy to give the benefit of the doubt and indeed if they are interpreting data intelligently in light of the wider marketing plan and making changes as a result then I think that is better than dogmatically sticking with something which you now think is not optimal (provided it does not materially disadvantage/upset the customer base - there will be very few people other than a couple on here watching every block in Wembley stadium with eagle eyes for changes in pricing.) I don't think any of us truly know the "right" or "wrong" approach as that will only become clear in time - the one thing we do know for sure is that they, like everyone on this forum, want Wembley to be as full and as big a success as can realistically be delivered with the resources and profile that the sport has and any decisions they make will be made towards that aim.

Interesting - can someone show what has changed on a map?

You're right - that wouldn't happen. I overreacted.

You would not see anything like that at similar age group football or RU around me (South East) If my son was involved in that sort of atmosphere, I'd have him playing RU the next week. It's a genuine issue.

Fair enough - I just think dishonest is a massive stretch. The more blocks they open with the least attractive seats at £20 the better IMO; all it seems to mean to me is that they are confident that it's going to top the 51k originally priced and released. Anyway, if we beat that lot I won't care if they quadruple my ticket and let everyone else in for free so I'm probably not the one to judge reasonableness here.

The tickets lower down below the newly opened seats are £80 I think. I might be wrong but I think the £100 and £150 tickets (Centre Circle and Bobby Moore) include access to hospitality areas - or at least they do when you buy for football. So I can see the point re: the back of middle tier vs £30 at the front of the top tier, but we should remember a) the middle is the Club Wembley ring and therefore a more pleasant/atmospheric experience than a partly open top tier and b) having sat in both those places I think you might be suprised at the difference in views between them. I can see an argument that you might have made some of the first rows in the uppper tier Cat would have gone split the new sections in three - Cat 2 before moving to 3/4 but I would still pick the other Cat 2 areas before sitting in potentially the only open top tier section for reasons of facilities and views, so I think it is still about right.

But who are you annoyed on behalf of to the extent that you would call the promotion of this event "dishonest" (a fairly pointed accusation)? Nobody who has bought tickets is screaming that they want to sit in worse seats than were available when they bought theirs in return for a tenner back, or is complaining that they have been swindled by dishonest practices as far as I can tell from any feedback anywhere. The issue all just seems a bit manufactured. I would imagine that the vast majority of early buyers are looking at it saying "glad I'm not sitting up there but if they can sell those tickets and boost the crowd, fair play".

This is some extrapolation you are making from the opening up of new sections at Wembley for a game in five months, with 50% of the new tickets released in a new area of the stadium not previously open being priced at £30 (ie the opposite of what is being suggested re: early buying incentives - a worse seat for the same price as you could have got a better seat had you moved earlier). Maybe there is a small market for people whose upper limit is £20 and who would rather sit in the worst seats for that price than pay another tenner, but I suspect it is very small. Which is probably reflected in the fact that there are probably only about 4k of these tickets on sale out of what 60k? The idea that people - and particularly the "early buyer" RL crowd - would hang fire and see if they could possibly save £10 to sit in an inferior seat rather than getting the best seat they can for £30 seems pretty stretchy to me.

Does anyone actually have an issue with the release of worse tickets for less, or is it an issue that is just imagined on here? As someone who has bought 14 tickets for the match I don't see it as undermining the initial pricing or incentive to buy early at all. There is not one single ticket currently on sale in the stadium at the price point I paid or lower that is better than the ticket I have, so the incentive for me to buy early is real and entirely intact.