Eddie

It’s a long way from Essex for a midweek Carabao cup 2nd round game vs Crewe.

Hideous.

Someone who wants the free T-shirt?

That’s good to hear, must admit I’d heard that AFL was becoming more popular in Sydney and Brisbane. I’d love to see a Perth NRL team and maybe even one in Adelaide.

It’s looking that way, Leeds and Wigan are dying on their ar5es.

Exactly, with Aussie Rules making inroads into RL territory, and the NRL’s reluctance to combat it, they may soon find out what it’s like not to be top dogs on their own turf.

Congratulations on winning the award for most Rugby League-esque post of the year.

Over 16k at a Friday night league game, banging atmosphere and a good game before Saints ran away with it; any passive or non-RL fan who flicked that on would probably have kept watching. It was such a contrast to games at other clubs (or Saints’ other games) which seem dull in comparison and it’s really set a bar, for Saints and everyone else. I’d love to see more crowds and atmospheres like that at SL games.

Thanks. Where do you get the NRL figures from please?

Fabulous crowd and atmosphere, a real spectacle for those of us watching on TV. There’ll be a few on this forum fuming about the empty seats in the corner though, and I’m sure I could see an inch of safety barrier in the Saints end.

Is there much crossover between Leeds Utd and Rhinos in terms of fans?

Well yeah, now and again . I’ve only ever been to one cricket match, it was a test match at Trent Bridge, there were 3 or 4 overs before it started raining all day and I missed them all because I was queuing at the bar. I can imagine T20 is decent for a session though.

Fair enough, I wasn’t questioning what you said as if it was wrong, I just really didn’t know. I don’t watch cricket, would rather cheese grate my own ball bag, but I can imagine it’s much better when there are fans in too.

Do Sky hate empty seats? I do, and I assume most fans do, but they happily show cricket in empty stadiums and other poorly supported rubbish so I’m not sure if they care as long as people are watching on tv?

I’d wager Saints get a bigger crowd, they’re the bigger club these days.

Goes to show how little value TWP brought to the game, other than much bigger crowds than anyone else at the same level and enormous media exposure.

In terms of what? Not generating atmosphere. I’d say Saints and Wire’s stadiums are better.

Oh yeah they’re dire, just tedious. I know why we don’t have a 14 team SL but from a spectator point of view it would be so much better.

Incredible isn’t it, that circa 10k more people would go because it was at Elland Rd. Cas must have taken more away fans for the occasion too.

Did you get bigger crowds at Elland Road than you would have if those games had been at Headingley? Agreed if we have to have loop fixtures it would be good if each team has to take one game on the road each year, like the Barcelona game a few years ago. There could also be double headers; a Saints v Wigan and Leeds v Hull double header in Amsterdam or Prague would be superb.

Do you also think Leeds should downsize Headingley to 11,000 so it looks packed on tv, and play any big games at Elland Road?

Why are there premier league games tonight? Norwich are at home too, I can’t remember us ever playing a league game on a Thursday before. Shame for the Rhinos though as you say.

Excellent, should be a great spectacle for us watching on TV, I hope Wire turn up and give us a good game.

Regional doesn’t mean one region, the game is popular in a number of small regions that are dwarfed by the rest of the UK. Namely west Cumbria, West Yorkshire, Hull and a small part of Lancashire / north Cheshire in between Manchester and Liverpool. That is regional in my opinion, if you disagree that’s fine.

Even for the sake of a debate on an Internet forum I don’t know how Rugby League could be defined as a national sport in the UK. It is a regional sport (parts of Yorkshire, Lancashire and Cumbria) with a handful of outposts dotted around the rest of the country.