Eddie

Bruce Leigh?

I’d go strongest team and against France, and if we win rest some key players against Greece. The QF (assuming we make it) is a fortnight away.

Football isn’t a minority sport, and the media attention is huge.

Excellent pedantry , adds an extra 101 to the total as well.

I did think that tbf and admit I was wrong, the international game has got fairly popular, particularly among children. 99% of men are still not interested though, especially in the club game. However the media coverage is far in excess of people’s interest, the BBC website for example puts it on a par with the men’s game.

Fair enough, in that case it was foolish of them.

Honestly mate you’re starting to sound like a stuck record, all you’ve done this week is write endless posts about how low the crowds are. Each to their own of course but why are you so obsessed with it? You might be happier if you enjoyed the games themselves and didn’t worry about how many people are in the ground.

Why does everyone keep comparing our World Cup to the Women’s World Cup? They are completely different and given the national obsession with football, the reach it has over the entire country, the saturation media coverage and the number of girls playing these days I wouldn’t expect our ticket sales to match theirs.

There’s a few lads heading over to this from Norfolk (as it’s our easiest game to get to ) but I doubt I’ll even watch on tv. Saturday though, can’t wait.

It’s the third or fourth (?) most popular sport in a sparsely populated country of 5m. I like your thinking but there is no way there would be large enough crowds, even the Warriors don’t attract big attendances as the only professional team in the country and the rest of amateur. Realistically NZ hosting NZ’s games and maybe one or two of Tonga or Samoa’s as part of an Australian WC would be the only option.

You think Wales getting 8k in Wales is good, but getting 6k at Leigh is bad?

The music when play stops is annoying, other than that this is great.

Agree you shouldn’t have to have to log in just to see what tickets are available - that’s an appalling idea, a fair few people probably haven’t bothered once they got to that stage.

Just got home from work and turned it on, was expecting Cook Islands to be at least 16 ahead at h/t - Come on Wales

Not Brexit or Donald Trump’s?

It’s weird that I spent so long fretting that they’d beat England and the World Cup would be a disaster. Now we should just have to beat PNG to make the semis, and on the evidence so far it’s not too far fetched that we could beat Tonga at Arsenal and then even win the final - happy days

That you dare say they have less than 50% of non welsh players, rather than that they have, which sounds like an informed guess rather than stat. You then go on to say that has been the case on occasions in the past, not that it is now. I really have no idea if they have < 50% welsh players now and don’t want to argue about it, I just didn’t think it sounded like a stat in the first place. Apologies if I misinterpreted it.

That isn’t what you said though tbf.

It’s not a stat, he’s just guessing. Wales produces no end of footballers and always has.

No idea what’s on their balance sheet, but they could potentially use the money from the additional tickets sold (at lower prices) to refund those of us who bought at the high prices. That is unless they don’t think they’d sell many more at low prices, which is possible. Thankfully the government have got other stuff going on at the moment, so won’t be looking too closely at their investment.

I’ve never organised a World Cup and don’t understand the difficulties involved (easy to throw stones and scream incompetence from the comfort of an Internet forum), as well as having the benefit of hindsight, but it does seem clear that some chronic errors have been made, most significantly ticket prices, venue selection and the inadequacy of the ticket website. Its too late to change venues and the ease of buying tickets but I don’t think it’s right for them to keep prices at the obvious too high levels because they don’t want those who bought early to miss out. They could reduce ticket prices and refund those who bought early the difference for example, unlikely I know but if they want bigger crowds it’s an option.

No better entertainment in St Helens on an October Tuesday night???

Chosen because he’s from Bedfordshire. I could have also picked Dunstable Town.

A more then respectable crowd given the circumstances, and great to see so many supporters of Tonga and PNG there too.

Kenilworth Road would have been decent, I’d have come down and met you for a pint.