Sir Kevin Sinfield

Leeds by 4

I am in a similar situation, I will attend some games, but certainly less than the 2013 tournament, while spending more on tickets this time. However tickets were far too cheap in 2013, pricing for this tournament is still reasonable imo compared to other big events, hopefully the tournament sells and bring a lot of money into the sport. The cheapest category for the opening game is £30 adults and £15 concessions, if you want cheap tickets you should expect to be given the cheap seats.

That’s an unbelievable achievement if correct, when was the last time England got 30,000 for a home game? Never mind selling that many 6months+ before the game. Press releases like that followed up with don’t miss out buy now is what the tournament needs.

I think plenty more discounts/offers will come up before the tournament kicks off and maybe even during the tournament. Ticket prices are very high compared to the last tournament we hosted back in 2013 when adult tickets were going for £10 for early tournament games and £20 for the final. In comparison the latest 48 hour offer where you get a free upgrade is on £70 tickets for the England v Samoa game, £55 for either England v France or England v Greece, £70 for the semi final or £85 for the final. If this tournament does sell well, and I really hope it does, it will bring in money to rugby league like we have never seen before from an International tournament.

4 groups of 5, all clubs are guaranteed 2 home and 2 away games, the extra 2 home games can then be sold as part of the season ticket package, cup games will then get attendances similar to Super League games. The groups to be made up of 12 SL clubs and 8 Championship clubs, drawn completely at random from the 20 qualifying teams, you could end up with groups of al SL clubs, all Championship clubs, or a mix of the 2 in any combination. The Winner of each group goes into the cup semi final. The other Championship and League One clubs that don’t make it to the last 8 before the Super League clubs enter the competition can play for a a separate Challenge Cup bowl trophy, giving clubs near the bottom of the Championship and in League One the chance of winning a trophy and having a Wembley day out.

The Cup needs to be played in 4 groups with the winner of each group going straight to the semi final, then games can be sold as part of the season ticket package. Empty stadiums on prime time bbc free to air tv is a terrible advertisement for the game.

The game didn’t actually clash with the Six Nations which started after this game, that’s a terrible excuse. As for the sunny weather excuse, let’s just hope we don’t get any more of that for the rest of the season.

Catalan by 50

Leeds by 16

How many overseas players do Leigh have?

£4-£6 million? The new North and South stands at Headingley cost £30 million. Granted the North stand isn’t a typical stand and a complex build but the Southstand alone cost £10 million. £4 million won’t build much of a stadium, it will buy an empty plot of land (something you need before building a stadium can begin) and that’s about it. Plus the RFL don’t have millions spare sitting at round to build stadiums, you are talking pipe dream nonsense.

I really hope they do just get on with it and something happens other than just releasing plans. I thought they were about to start building 20+ years ago, so for me I will only believe the latest plans once shovels actually hit the ground and building work has begun.

For comparison Leeds got an average audience of 531,000 with a peak of 750,000 watching the final few moments of the game. I say Leeds got as both sides were playing Warrington, so the only difference is one game featured Leeds and the other Wakefield. That’s a 62% decrease in average viewing figures and a 60% decrease in peak viewing figures. Excuses like it was sunny, or Six Nations was on (it didn’t even clash) won’t cut it, they are a nonsense. Channel 4 need to get as many games between the household recognisable names as they can, they need to pick as many fixtures as possible between 2 of the follow sides Leeds, Saints, Wigan, Warrington, Hull, Catalans.

I can’t remember the figures but the viewers were well down for Wakefield v Warrington compared to Hull v Saints, which was also down compared to Leeds v Warrington. Now I don’t want this to sound negative as we had a great start but a downward trajectory for viewing figures isn’t good. What’s the next few games on Channel 4? Personally I think it’s clear we need to broadcast our big clubs to the Nation on free to air tv.

Imagine if the RFL had spent £44 million building a stadium in South Wales only for the owner to give the club up and someone based in Wrexham to take them over and move them there. Or if they’d spent the money building one in Salford only for Salford to decide they don’t want to pay rent on a decent stadium and would rather move to a cheap tiny stadium with no facilities (corporate). (I’ve used the cost of York’s new stadium for the £44m figure). Not only do the RFL not have that kind of money it’s too much risk to put on one club who may do either of the above.

It’s not down to the RFL to build stadiums, it’s down to the individual clubs (unless we were to build a Rugby League National Stadium that hosted all our Internationals and Finals)

Is the ground only going to have 1 stand

Spot on, Young should have a decision to make whether to represent Jamaica or England. When we have Hardaker, Marshall, Percival, Evalds, Lyne and Sarginson in the England train on squad, both Farnworth and Young should be in ahead of the lot of them imo.

Headingley Stadium is complete and a fantastic Rugby League stadium. Belle Vue is like visiting a Soviet Union ground in the 1930’s

Ones a prop the others a second row

77 NRL players were born overseas and 161 NRL players have a parent who was born overseas. That should make for a great World Cup. It would be good to see the stats in more detail, ie, how many NRL players were born in each country and how many are eligible internationally for each country. I remember seeing an article from maybe 5+ years ago how players from New Zealand in the NRL had increased significantly since the Warriors had joined the competition. Interesting that we think the NRL is poaching England’s best players, but there are more players born in each of Tonga, Samoa and Fiji than England in the NRL, England only rank 6th in place of birth for NRL players.

I’ll believe it when I see it and not a moment before

Never mind the tackle that footage is terrible. Was that filmed on a Nokia 3310

Leeds were interested in keeping him but Salford offered him more money and a longer contract I believe, that’s the nature of the salary cap

It’s only a 15 hour drive on a good run