RLWC What are your highs and lows

[Pie tries]

Highs

Greece - great story. WC comp. PDRL. Lebanon. NZ v Aus (inc. especially the HT commentary). James Bentley having a chat with Radders. The slow but steady rise of PNG. Free to air games - every night (that I’m still married is amazing). Brazil. Canada (world wide spread !!). French linesman at WC

Kevin Sinfield

Lows

Pricing. Every game should have been packed. Too many NW games. Aussies winning. Not playing either NZ or Aus (England v Aus iconic fixture - when did we last play then when di we next play them). France (must do better). Non neutral refs.

[Sports Prophet]

Positive

- semis and second two quarters

Negative

- only two top four ranked nations played one game against another top 4 nation (Aus and NZ). Two of those top 4 ranked nations (Aus and Eng) had just one competitive fixture all tournament.

 

Edited November 23, 2022 by Sports Prophet

[anjado]

Main positive for me were the Brazilian women's team to have never played the game and nearly win their last one was a really great effort by them. It was fascinating watching them play.

Lowlight were the blowouts until the very end of the tournament and low crowds for many games especially around the heartland areas. 

[Anita Bath]

positive. the last two weeks ….rugby at its best with semi finals as good as anything seen in origin, well played and well refereed.

 

negatives the first three weeks …blow out after blow out.

[JohnM]

Apart from the actual sport itself:

High point: the BBC coverage.

Low point: all the bluddy moaning and whining and negativity on here.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

10 hours ago, Chrispmartha said:

Some of the crowds have been really disappointing and I’ve criticised the organisers for that, but the tournament is more than just how many people turned up to a midweek game in warrington.

Would any of your buddies commented on the crowd tonight?

Final looked great and yes would have looked good to anyone 

I do think just having those sorts of games on BBC best.....as tours / 4 nations or a much smaller WC 'finals'' with say 6-8 teams 

I don't want to be a party pooper....

[Tommygilf]

Positives

The Women's and Wheelchair tournaments really injected some enthusiasm in the tournament for me after 3 weeks that were a bit of a slog. The timing of their tournaments, if not all the scheduling, was superb.

The Tonga/Samoa QF, Kiwi/Fiji QF both Semis and the mens final finally brought the mens tournament up a notch. Some great stories in the mens group stages though, if mostly off the field.

The BBC coverage has been outstanding.

"Development Points"

Scheduling and Ticketing: this RLWC seems to have fundamentally misunderstood its audience. Too many mens tournament tickets being pushed in similar areas and games seemed to be in direct competition with eachother.

I'm not even going to go into the silly ticket pricing model they went with for some fixtures; or how that made no logical sense with their target attendance figures. 

The group stage scheduling too made it so that the first round of fixtures was essentially the only competitive fixture for many nations till the knockouts, these should have been spread better imo.

Fan Experience: many of the games themselves have been lacklustre as events. A bit basic for a World cup that was going with the premium event tag. Not having singers for the anthems in some of the group games stood out particularly for me. 

All that is before we get to the really poor ticketing website. It was just naff.

Overall I'm disappointed, mainly for 2 points.

1. A lot of the flaws were obvious and predictable, yet it took Mick Hogan coming in on an emergency draft in for some critical changes to be made.

2. I had a lot of hope riding on this world cup for the sport in the UK. It has demonstrated how far we are behind the NRL, I'm not sure it is going to be the boost I and others wanted it to be. It has shown that Womens and Wheelchair RL have massive growth potential, but I have very little faith in the powerbrokers and decision makers to make positive forward steps with that - case in point being the Women playing the warm up act against France in their match next year.

[Bedfordshire Bronco]

13 hours ago, Bedfordshire Bronco said:

Positives - England's opening game. Looked great on telly and magnificent result 

 

Negatives - I honestly feel this WC has done more harm than good with the appalling attendances and blow out scores all over the BBC. I have lost track of people commenting on it to me down here (more than a dozen people have said the same thing ). I honestly wish most games had been on Premier or something ........or even better a well attended competive  4 nations of NZ, Aus, Enh, Samoa would have been far preferable across 4 weekends on BBC

Ok I've over done it a bit ....I did enjoy lots of it....but I stand by only showing the big games on BBC 

 

[Hopie]

Just to add another lowlight, taking the tags off my official England 2021 shirt that I bought last summer, they had already dropped it and made another one before I wore it.

[sam4731]

Highs:

The wheelchair final

Jamaica's first ever WC try against the kiwis

Kev finishing at Old Trafford

Tonga vs PNG

Lows:

Emirates semi final

Australia cleaning up

 

[gogledd]

I was very pleasantly surprised at how well Wales mens team fronted up. THey didn't win but they certainly battled in every game.

As the Wales Wheelchair team manager, I was more than proud of our team and support staff. We targeted reaching the semi-finals as a minimum and achieved that. We had three superb community events - one online, one in a school in Keighley and one in a youth club in Sheffield. It was a real privilege to be involve with all three events. We made great friends with the USA team who were in the same hotel and we had some smashing comments about our attitude and demeanour from lots of sources. It was ironic that our one blip - a yellow card for Gary Preece, was given by the French official that cant control his own temperament.

I was also involved in the State of Mind choir performance before the opening PDRL game and also in the choir at the six 'This Is Us' performances outside Manchester Central before the Wheelchair World Cup final. A really fantastic addition to the games and engage with people from non-RL backgrounds in something totally different to the game itself; a combination of music dance and performance which again focused on inclusivity.

Although Wales weren't involved in the World Cup Final the Wheelchair final was probably the best game I saw during the 4 weeks of the tournament. A spectacular game between two evenly matched, skilful teams. Huge Congratulations to England on winning the final.

I was disappointed that Wales after beating NZ in the PDRL game had their game nullified by fielding the wrong categories on the field - lets hope thats a lesson learned by the coach and team manager.

Overall, far more positives than negatives for me

[Leyther_Matt]

Highs

Kevin Sinfield. Get that man a job in RL for god’s sake

The honour and privilege of attending the wheelchair final. Ironically the only tickets we’d bought before the date change. The change of venue was also a little fortuitous as I don’t think Liverpool Arena would have carried the atmosphere the same

Tonga v PNG at Saints, a great contest

The enthusiasm of the Lebanese fans at their games at Leigh

Changing ends at half time at Coventry and then realising about 2,000 people had the same idea

Attending fourteen games was a bit of a slog at times, particularly a second midweek in the rain at Donny but a great experience all the same!

Lows

England losing the semi. All I could think of while at the game yesterday was how good it would have been for England to be involved 

Not being able to pick your seat  

[meast]

Highs (in no particular order)

• Seeing the likes of Greece and Jamaica playing in and scoring their first ever tries
• Seeing big, enthusiastic noisy crowds for the womens games
• Seeing and hearing the reaction to the wheelchair tournament, I bet most of us hadn't even considered watching the sport before?
• Samoa reaching the final and the effect it had on the Samoan people.
• The amount of women,kids and families at the matches.

Lows (in no particular order)

• Seeing so many empty seats, especially for the knockout games
• England not making the mens final
• Seeing the negativity around the tickets being expensive ( they were, to a point, but the structures themselves were wrong, but that wasn't the narrative).
• Not having official team merchandise at the venues only the RLWC versions
• Heartland and regular RL fans not supporting the tournament- again, blamed on "disgusting" ticket prices, but not just the prices.

I struggled to name many lows as I tend to look for and find the positives so limited it to 5 each.

On the last bit about the heartland fans, I get that not everyone is as positive and supportive as I am, but I was quite shocked at how many regulars, from the people I know who follow Huddersfield and other teams, haven't been to a single game or even watched any of the games, spoke to a couple of mates who I go to Giants with and they said they weren't prepared to pay £80 for games to sit and watch in a corner etc , I told them the most I'd paid for a game was £30 and had a good view from most of the games I'd seen, just shows how the "tickets are too expensive" narrative got through.

 

[UBranger]

I've enjoyed it all bar Australia winning. Missing it already now it's finished.

[meast]

17 hours ago, Chrispmartha said:

Im sorry but your second part is really hyperbolic.

to counter your anecdote ive never had has many people talk to me about RL than in the last month or so and it’s been  all positive, not one person has said anything about empty seats or blow out scorelines.

The same in my experience, it's the action on the field and the womens and wheelchair games that have made the biggest impression on non RL regulars in my experience.

[meast]

18 hours ago, headtackle said:

 

- players staying on the pitch for ages after the games for selfies 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I've mentioned this a couple of times and something I think as a sport we should seriously look at.

First of all, it's fabulous that the players and fans have that connection, the fact that fans can wait at the side of the pitch and have selfies etc with the players is brilliant....but

This should be done after the players have done a lap or honour or even taken the applause of the crowd straight after the game.

I always like to stay and applaud the teams for their efforts but have found myself now leaving games on the hooter as more often than not the players don;t even acknowledge the crowd after the game and just hang around on the pitch chatting to their team mates and opponents before wandering over to their friends and familes.

Perfect example was last Monday at York, at the end of ENG V NZ, there was almost a full house, all very appreciative of the girls and all stood in the cold, mist and rain waiting to clap the players off, after 10 minutes not one player came over the the crowd, not one player clapped the crowd or took the applause of the crowd and instead just wandered about to their mates and family etc, which, is great, but there's thousands of people, especially kids and young girls wanting to clap and cheer the teams and who instead, left disgruntled while the players all did media stuff and chatted with their mates at the far side.

It's the same at club level, the Giants players used to come straight over to the fans after the game but now, stand around chatting with their mates, then get into a huddle and have a team conference for a few minutes, only them do some of the walk towards the hundred or so fans that are left and clap for a few seconds.

Surely it's not a lot to ask for the players of both teams and the media too, to leave the matey stuff out for a couple of minutes so the fans can show their appreciation etc.

As I said, it's great that we see pictures like the one of Emily Rudge and her students but surely that should come after all 7,000 other people have had a chance to clap the teams off the field?

It's not a negative as such but more a way to make it even more positive.

[Black Country Wire]

Highs:

The wheelchair games

5 new ground ticks

Early bird ticket pricing (£356 for my initial 20 tickets - less than £18 each)

The men's semi finals.

No bloody Mexican waves (apart from that one in the final and at least it was during a break in play)

Seeing some new teams.

 

Lows.

Whoever decided that we couldn't possibly have 3 seconds between the award and taking of a handover without some random music being blasted out. Let alone scrums, penalties, drop outs and 20m restarts.

The game order - should be 1 v 4 in the first group game not the last.

Lack of geographical spread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Tommygilf]

38 minutes ago, Black Country Wire said:

The game order - should be 1 v 4 in the first group game not the last.

On this, I think there is a spread to be had.

In the mens group stages there were, by my count, 6 or so real top tier competitive matches that would decide qualifiers and qualifications spots (out of 16 games). 

Yet almost all of these had been played by the first couple of days, and all of them had been played by round 2. It was a rather extreme front loading which didn't really help anyone IMO. 

[Oxford]

Highs: too many to make a list of!

Lows: too few and too insignifican to bother with a list.

Extra high good coverage on The Last Leg!

[Curly perm]

On 19/11/2022 at 21:49, Jacob565 said:

Low- realisation that the North isn’t really that interested in the sport outside a small core fanbase.

If all tickets were a tenner and we got the same attendances, that’d prob be a fair conclusion but there are so many other factors affecting attendances.

We’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis, accommodation/petrol/travel is so expensive at the moment, the ticket pricing structure weren’t great for a lot of games and all games were on the telly. People are interested but attending games is a luxury and the fan base isn’t exactly flush. 

[Oxford]

23 minutes ago, Curly perm said:

People are interested but attending games is a luxury and the fan base isn’t exactly flush. 

Spot on the summing up in your post and it's not just feeling the pinch now it's the fear of what's next.

 

[Oxford]

I searched high and low for a real and truly negative aspect of the RLWC and I found it finally ............................................................................... Ray Wilkin !

[graveyard johnny]

autumn leaves 

Keiser chiefs 

laptop thieves 

[The Masked Poster]

On 22/11/2022 at 14:15, Curly perm said:

If all tickets were a tenner and we got the same attendances, that’d prob be a fair conclusion but there are so many other factors affecting attendances.

We’re in the middle of a cost of living crisis, accommodation/petrol/travel is so expensive at the moment, the ticket pricing structure weren’t great for a lot of games and all games were on the telly. People are interested but attending games is a luxury and the fan base isn’t exactly flush. 

How does that stand up when football clubs like Notts County and Bradford City got 16k and 18k respectively that weekend? They aren't exactly glamorous clubs, and don't just say "it's football" people are still willing to spend money and attend things if they are so inclined.

We will never get anywhere if we constantly produce a string of excuses. There are things that were done wrong, let's not pretend otherwise - or we'll be having this same thread in 10 years. 

[Leyther_Matt]

22 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

How does that stand up when football clubs like Notts County and Bradford City got 16k and 18k respectively that weekend? They aren't exactly glamorous clubs, and don't just say "it's football" people are still willing to spend money and attend things if they are so inclined.

We will never get anywhere if we constantly produce a string of excuses. There are things that were done wrong, let's not pretend otherwise - or we'll be having this same thread in 10 years. 

In the case of Bradford, at least, it’s because they charge two and six for a season ticket (sounds familiar) so have thousands of them.

”It’s football” is quite a valid point in this case though. Particularly when you look at how club-centric RL fans have proven to be in this tournament. Now contrast that where lower league football is currently the only show in town.

(I’m probably a good example of how dominant football is in this country. I only missed three Leigh games for the whole of last season and went to fourteen RLWC games. However I missed England-France on my doorstep to pay £26 to stand on an uncovered terrace at Accrington v Bolton and missed the England-Samoa to pay £25 to see Cambridge 0 Bolton 0. In fact, the Saturday afternoon scheduling meant the only England game I attended was the quarter final. The Samoa and Greece games clashed with Bolton home games already on my season ticket, and would have probably missed the PNG game too had I known Bolton would have had a home FA Cup draw when buying tickets, albeit I dodged a bullet on that one!)