JonM

Gold Coast who averaged over 19K home attendance last season? If you're picking a laggard in terms of attendances, St. George is clearly the one to go for, particularly home games in Wollongong, although Kogarah isn't much better.

And issued by the Bank of England, not the Bank of Britain or the Bank of UK

Gets a fairly detailed write-up in this week's Private Eye.

I remember that game very well. Arrived about 2 hours before kick-off, no-one there to take my money, so just wandered into the ground. Saw the state of some of the Widnes players and knew we were going to get beaten. Also remember thinking that Kurt Sorensen's arms were about the same size as Jonathan Davies's legs.

That's a good opportunity to remind ourselves that Australia's most recent game was a 30 points to 0 defeat against New Zealand

The Courtney Goodwill Trophy ran on this basis for some years - matches between GB/England, France, Australia, New Zealand were eligible and whoever beat the current holder became the new holder of it.

Have we had any of the various articles about the Fiji bid on here? https://wwos.nine.com.au/nrl/news-2024-the-mole-exclusive-expansion-bid-fiji-government-bev-broughton/0f34e59f-9a16-4a0e-a7ce-ebab8999601b

How so? It's less than 50% of the capacity at Robina, of course, and down on last season's average of 17K. 11 214 for Warrington v Catalan. Thought the Saturday afternoon KO and BBC coverage might've reduced that - seems like a pretty decent attendance.

Bradford v Halifax 3853 NRL Today Gold Coast v Dolphins 13 898 St. George v Manly 16 215 in Wollongong

Saints v Wigan 17 980 Widnes v Swinton 2 751 Doncaster v Sheffield 1 717

Football has a far bigger pool of potential supporters. If you have 50% of fans who can't make it, there's plenty more to replace them. We don't have that. And even there, cup games are not as well supported as regular league fixtures.

Widnes 28 Swinton 10 FT. Rather closer than the scoreline suggests, with a couple of late Widnes tries. Good performance from both teams, well refereed (although Dec Patton appeared to disagree a few times).

A point I've made many times on here. It's not the pricing or the competition structure. Arranging games at short notice means a significant chunk of the audience cannot go. A reasonable proportion of people with jobs or families or other commitments simply can't or won't be able to attend on a random day and time. League fixtures are there in the calendar months ahead and can be planned for. Cup games and play-offs aren't. We don't have too many postponed games these days, but when we do, the re-arranged games often suffer crowdwise for the reason.

That's when I stopped being a kid

As a child, I saw GB lose to Australia in 1978, a drawn home series vs NZ in 1980, a thrashing from the Aussies in 1982, some tv coverage of us losing to both Australia & NZ away in 1984, another drawn home series against NZ in 1985, another beating from the Aussies in 1986. First time I saw us beat the Aussies was 1988, early morning TV, third test in Sydney - Henderson Gill, Mike Gregory, Phil Ford and Martin Offiah. No world cup for most of that period too. So I don't think it was success on the field that formed the attachment for our generation. We had 8000 kids watching England women vs Brazil 18 months ago, one of the most enjoyable RL experiences of my life. Predictably, the RFL appear to have done nothing to follow up on that.

Thinking some more about this, I'd also add Oldham v Featherstone in the 2nd division Premiership Final at Old Trafford. Oldham 22 - 0 up, then Rovers then staged a brilliant fight back to lead 26 - 22, only for Des Foy to find a gap from nowhere and pass it to the support to level the scores. Easy kick to win, but the Oldham player scuffed it and it just scraped over the bar. Remember that much more clearly than Widnes beating Hull (or Bradford, I forget which year it was) straight afterwards. Saints v Bradford 19-18 in the 2002(?) Grand Final was another cracker.

I don't think it's.a generational thing. Hard for anyone to get much of an attachment for a team that plays so infrequently. The England soccer team (and England Women's soccer team) are much higher profile today than they were in the past. Same thing in cricket - it's all about the national team.

45 793 at Suncorp for Brisbane Broncos vs NQ Cowboys

9026 for Castleford v Leeds. Presumably Cas know exactly what figure they need to hit this season for averaging 7500+ over 3 seasons. 35,275 for South Sydney vs Canterbury.

Realistically though, that is a multi-decade project. France has around 70-80 amateur clubs, they are not going to be competitive with England unless something pretty dramatic happens. Below that you're on to the likes of Wales, Serbia, Greece, Czechia with maybe 8-10 amateur clubs.

In fairness, there's probably not any of the last nearly 70 seasons you'd want to re-watch right through as a Warrington fan

25 898 for Roosters v Penrith Panthers. A far cry from the days of them getting 5K or so at the Sydney Football Stadium.

You're not wrong. England last played Australia in England at the London Stadium in the 2016 Four Nations. The previous meeting in *England* was in the 2011 Four Nations. We've gone from three games here on an Ashes tour every four years to a game once a decade.

Looks like two other clubs, both currently in SL, both within the space of 4 days.

In terms of atmosphere, for me as a Widnes fan, beating Australia in 1978. As a small child, I watched the whole game from pitchside over the boundary wall, as the crowd had spilled over from the terraces. Far more people in the ground than the official attendance. Must've been incredibly intimidating for the visitors playing in such conditions. Obviously Widnes beating Wigan at Naughton Park to win the league in 1989, and Widnes beating Canberra at Old Trafford. In terms of an epic struggle, hard to see past Wigan vs Manly in 1987 as mentioned above. Also GB's 8-4 win against Australia at Wembley in the first test in 1994 after Shaun Edwards was sent off. My greatest memory from playing was probably not objectively a great game. We played a cup game in snowy, icy conditions at Runcorn and won by one try to nil, but it was one of those games where the whole team seemed to rise to the occasion and tackle their hearts out. Out of hundreds of games, it's the one that really sticks in my mind.