RLWC What are your highs and lows

[The Masked Poster]

1 minute ago, Leyther_Matt said:

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!)

My point is that while football is clearly miles more popular than anything else, those clubs are still drawing from the same type of people that RL rely on. And if it's only cos Bradford have cheap season tickets (just checked and am early bird one is about £200, so still not giving them away) that doesn't explain why people actually get off their backside and go to an unglamorous team in the bottom division. 

As for you going to football instead of RL, I'm afraid that's just weird

[THE RED ROOSTER]

Moaning post I am afraid

Highs

Attendances - Given that there was live coverage on the BBC, attendances did hold up certainly in the games I was at 18k at Sheffield for a non-contest, 40K at Arsenal, 67k at the Final. England games did hold up and the "other" Elland Road Semi drew a respectable crowd too.

England - Played better footy than predicted pre-tournament. a cloud has been cast over the entire performance by losing in Golden Point to Samoa. if that had ben the result odf the first game at St James Park would posters have reacted as they did after the Semi-Final ?. The fact is they played well up to the Arsenal game, I have no problem with Shaun Wane's coaching, and to the critics of Jack Welsby I say this - I take it then you have had a bad day at work? . This is a learning experience for him at an early stage in his career. He will come good

The last two quarter-finas and the two semi-finals. The world cup can be compelling viewing if you have two reasonably well matched sides competing against each other. As I stated in the Australia v Scotland thread you need a world cup of 8 teams with two of those places decided in a preliminary tournament. To avoid the blowouts that plagued earlier rounds.

Kevin Sinfield - Ok not strictly world cup, but credit to the man and as he said, if we all do something for our mates the world would be a better place.

Lows

Travel -It's been said I am a bit of a trainspotter on another thread, but at both Sheffield and Manchester trains I was booked on were cancelled at short notice so I had to scamble on both occasions to get back down south, so less a trainspotter trhan an indicator board watcher. Then you had the Rail strike which prevented me getting to Wigan, now only the second occasion where I have had a ticket but did not go (the other was for the capital challenge when my mnother was taken into hospital). And as for failing franchise Avanti West Coast the franchise that cannot tell you if its running a weekend service until 10 days before the event...

It does draw a paralell with the 2000 World Cup when IIRC, it was not just rain but also problems on the West coast line where the introduction of the Pendalino service by the then franchise hoider Virgin Trains meaning a long 3 hour journey via Leicester.

England - They were a plus ands a minus, and in terms of expectation management you cannot help but feel that had they got into the final they would have had a punchers chance against a good but not vintage Australia.  So deflation all round and an opportunity missed.

Equally print media coverage down here which was sparse to begin with almost ceased once England exited

Merchandising - I did not like the colour scheme foe the World Cup which should have been either Red and white or Red, White and Blue. I did not like the logos on merchandise and would have preferred official national team crests of the competing countries and official kit and accessories on sale. The whole RLWC 2021 (played in 2022) had a redundant stock sale feel about it which is understandable, except the England Kit for 2021 was changed for 2022 presumably with a view to fleecing fans.

Clunky - James Graham has a lot to answer for for introducing this phrase into the Rugby League broadcasting lexicon.

In conclusion, I will say that, overall IMO having attended in 2000 and 2013 this was the worst world cup of the three

[Curly perm]

11 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

My point is that while football is clearly miles more popular than anything else, those clubs are still drawing from the same type of people that RL rely on. And if it's only cos Bradford have cheap season tickets (just checked and am early bird one is about £200, so still not giving them away) that doesn't explain why people actually get off their backside and go to an unglamorous team in the bottom division. 

As for you going to football instead of RL, I'm afraid that's just weird

We can’t keep comparing RL to football - they’re just worlds apart in terms of popularity, marketing, coverage, participation, finances…everything. 

And a lot of the time we’re not just relying on the same type of people as football clubs, we’re relying on the same people who then have to make a choice (particularly in the current climate).

Yeah, no doubt, mistakes will have been made but are we expecting one tournament to fix all the underlying problems in the sport immediately and get people turning up in their tens of thousands? These are long standing issues. 

 

[Oxford]

3 hours ago, Curly perm said:

Yeah, no doubt, mistakes will have been made but are we expecting one tournament to fix all the underlying problems in the sport immediately and get people turning up in their tens of thousands? These are long standing issues. 

This is just of true as restructuring as it is of a World Cup.

At least ours wasn't held in a country where you can't legitimately protest without fear of the law or where people are demonised and targetted because they don't count. That would be awful!

[The Masked Poster]

3 hours ago, Curly perm said:

We can’t keep comparing RL to football - they’re just worlds apart in terms of popularity, marketing, coverage, participation, finances…everything. 

And a lot of the time we’re not just relying on the same type of people as football clubs, we’re relying on the same people who then have to make a choice (particularly in the current climate).

Yeah, no doubt, mistakes will have been made but are we expecting one tournament to fix all the underlying problems in the sport immediately and get people turning up in their tens of thousands? These are long standing issues. 

 

I'm not comparing it to *football*. I'm saying that you said the cost of living is preventing people attending leisure events such as sport. I'm pointing out that here are examples of sports events being attended by more ordinary people than attended all WC games bar 5 or 6. 

It's not even as if the events in question were special, just run of the mill games. 

You may say the point about football and it has validity because it is very very popular. But the excuse that people can't afford to attend things like our WC just doesn't hold water. 

In fact, I'd be genuinely surprised if this was the case for more than a handful of the RL demographic. And you illustrated the point by saying it was a long standing issue - it clearly goes beyond any current financial situation.

Edited November 24, 2022 by The Masked Poster

[Curly perm]

5 hours ago, The Masked Poster said:

In fact, I'd be genuinely surprised if this was the case for more than a handful of the RL demographic. And you illustrated the point by saying it was a long standing issue - it clearly goes beyond any current financial situation.

Of course there are loads of reasons but it’s difficult to conclude that ‘people in the north aren’t interested in rugby league’ (which is what I was originally responding to) in the current climate - everyone is affected. I also mentioned high ticket prices, all games on telly etc - then there’s all the other stuff around the sport. 

[graveyard johnny]

high- joey manu making the tournament 

low - tommy turbo not making the tournament 

[The Masked Poster]

4 hours ago, Curly perm said:

Of course there are loads of reasons but it’s difficult to conclude that ‘people in the north aren’t interested in rugby league’ (which is what I was originally responding to) in the current climate - everyone is affected. I also mentioned high ticket prices, all games on telly etc - then there’s all the other stuff around the sport. 

I didn't say people in the north weren't interested in RL. But it is struggling to get them into it's games. 

And it can't all be explained away by the cost of living. 

[HawkMan]

1 hour ago, The Masked Poster said:

I didn't say people in the north weren't interested in RL. But it is struggling to get them into it's games. 

And it can't all be explained away by the cost of living. 

It may be horrible to say this, but covid has taken about 150,000 souls,  mostly over 60 years old. It's just a guess but I'd say probably about 120,000 were 60 years old or over. RL had and has now a good percentage of older folk fans. Perhaps we've just lost a lot of fans, maybe 20,000 or so who knows. The game isn't really replacing fans lost through natural wastage.

[BadlyOverdrawnBoy]

Low - how did I stop my parrot saying " moooove" every few minutes?

[koli]

I think RL suffers to an extent from having a core fan base that is perhaps more knowledgeable/critical than is the case with other sports.

Its deep in the DNA to say “I want value for my money and a potential walkover isn’t value” so Aus v Italy in St Helens for eg always going to be a tough sell.

[The Masked Poster]

3 hours ago, koli said:

I think RL suffers to an extent from having a core fan base that is perhaps more knowledgeable/critical than is the case with other sports.

Its deep in the DNA to say “I want value for my money and a potential walkover isn’t value” so Aus v Italy in St Helens for eg always going to be a tough sell.

This is very true. But what is it that makes England RU fans turn up at Twickenham even if they were playing, say Romania? (Which used to happen)

Is it that the nature of RL means we know that the aforementioned game will be a walkover? Whereas the RU might still be a contest due to the  rules of the game? (Sorry, laws)

Is it that we're a bunch of tightwads? 

I wish I had the answer.

[The Masked Poster]

8 hours ago, HawkMan said:

It may be horrible to say this, but covid has taken about 150,000 souls,  mostly over 60 years old. It's just a guess but I'd say probably about 120,000 were 60 years old or over. RL had and has now a good percentage of older folk fans. Perhaps we've just lost a lot of fans, maybe 20,000 or so who knows. The game isn't really replacing fans lost through natural wastage.

I think that point has validity but don't think that's the answer.

Top range estimate, I'd say we're looking at 100k active RL fans in this country, is it really plausible that a fifth of them were killed off by Covid? Besides which, we had this problem well before Covid anyway. 

[HawkMan]

19 minutes ago, The Masked Poster said:

I think that point has validity but don't think that's the answer.

Top range estimate, I'd say we're looking at 100k active RL fans in this country, is it really plausible that a fifth of them were killed off by Covid? Besides which, we had this problem well before Covid anyway. 

Why do RU get bigger crowds and Football even bigger? Just a question of mathematics. If you're right in saying there is 100k active RL fans, then RU is a bigger nationwide game,  suppose therefore 500k RU fans, and god knows how many Football fans, including those who have it as their number 1 sport but don't actually go, possibly 5 million.  So if only 10% of RL and RU fans bother to go to perceived walk over games, that's 10,000 RLfans and 50,000 RU fans, same percentage vastly different attendances. If only 5% of footy fans go to see England vs San Marino at Wembley for example that's still a sell out. It's not a question of RL fans being less interested,  just there's a lot less of them!

Edited November 25, 2022 by HawkMan

[The Masked Poster]

1 minute ago, HawkMan said:

Why do RU get bigger crowds and Football even bigger? Just a question of mathematics. If you're right in saying there is 100k active RL fans, then RUis a bigger nationwide game,  suppose therefore 500k RU fans, and god knows how many Football fans, including those who have it as their number 1 sport but don't actually go, possibly 5 million.  So if only 10% of RL and RU fans bother to go to perceived walk over games, that's 10,000 RLfans and 50,000 RU fans, same percentage vastly different attendances. If only 5% of footy fans go to see England vs San Marino at Wembley for example that's still a sell out. It's not a question of RL fans being less interested,  just there's a lot less of them!

True but there's more RL fans in St Helens or Hull than other places and they still had less crowds than their regular club games so that still doesn't explain it. England RL also do get decent crowds occasionally - maybe when there is an effort to promote the game. So again, that doesn't back up the idea that nobody is interested. 

And Twickenham, Cardiff Arms Park and Murrayfield were always rammed even before there was (officially) any pro RU clubs to follow. 

[Jughead]

Highs

Wheelchair RL - It’s been our little secret for a little while but it’s been projected into the households of many through BBC coverage and it really seemed to gain some momentum, helped undoubtedly by how good England are and that culminating in a World Cup title. The hits are big, the skill is incredible and the stamina and strength the players have is unbelievable. I hope the documentary that is being made/has been made gets an equally good TV slot so we can continue the momentum. 

Samoa - It’s a bit like a corny kids sports film, isn’t it? To go from a hammering in their opening game to redemption by winning the semi-final against the very side that handed out that beating in game one. Incredible scenes across the planet supporting them. 

England attendances in non-RL cities - Pulling 100,000 or so in London, Newcastle and Sheffield after not playing in London in six years and having not taken an international to Newcastle or Sheffield is quite impressive and shows the pull of international rugby league that isn’t necessarily created by club sides, even our biggest clubs. 

Lows 

Ticketing - I won’t mention pricing, we all knew about that well prior to the first game but the way in which it was organised and the apparent lies and deceit from the organisers regarding the availability shown on the ticketing website and the way blocks would appear “sold out” and then suddenly become available or be completely empty left a sour taste. 

Attendances - We didn’t reach the target set out, so we can’t be happy with that. 

Blow Outs and lack of exciting fixtures - Linking to the above two points, blow outs or the likelihood of a blow out and the lack of exciting and intriguing fixtures outside of England games, certainly in the group stage, doesn’t appear to be that appetising to the British public. 

The lack of foresight from The RFL - Millions watched England play on TV and 100,000+ attended England games. If you were from the North East and attended the St James’ game or just happened to see a game on TV and got caught up in the event and wanted to see this in person, you couldn’t book anything besides the next couple of weeks. There were no fixtures planned going forward till England were defeated and out of the competition. Even now, we know one fixture and public interest is bound to have dissipated due to the football World Cup. 

[Damien]

5 hours ago, koli said:

I think RL suffers to an extent from having a core fan base that is perhaps more knowledgeable/critical than is the case with other sports.

Its deep in the DNA to say “I want value for my money and a potential walkover isn’t value” so Aus v Italy in St Helens for eg always going to be a tough sell.

I think whilst this is true the nature of RL is the problem too. A much better team will always batter a much poorer one. There is no holding on for a 0-0 draw like in Football or possibly being able to nick a goal from a corner or free kick and winning the game. There is no being able to hide behind a decent set piece in like in Union, as teams like Argentina and Georgia have historically been able to. In modern day RL there is generally one way to play the game and if you can't keep up with the pace and intensity you are screwed before we even get to difference in skill.

[shaun mc]

Highs

BBC Coverage and the 38 games I watched in full - mostly excellent. Chappers is now a great ambassador for the sport. However, (and not enough to be an overall bad point) the BBC didn't make enough of the after match celebrations/songs/prayers with the Pacific nations and the camaraderie of the players overall

The 5 games I went to - Tonga v PNG, Cooks v PNG, Tonga V Samoa, Eng v Samoa and the Final

Wheelchair and Womens RL getting the coverage and positive comments it has done, and just being great tv viewing

The whole day at the Final - although I wasn't there for the whole of it, it looked like a fantastic and well-planned occasion

Kevin Sinfield 

(Contovesrial one) the amount of positive RL stuff Vossy has put out as well as his commentary

The general standard of entertainment provided by all of the players involved

I'm still up for another festival of RL in France

Lows

Ticket prices for some games, not all, but also including how the ticketing was structured

The ticketing website itself - 'clunky' is being very kind to it. There were a number of times I tried for tickets to be told none available, and then to see large areas of unused seating. Whatever strategy the organisers were using, there could have been a large amount of lost ticket revenue through this, regardless of pricing

Travel - for 2 games I planned to go to, the train timetables weren't published until 4 days before the game - not an issue for the organisers of course, but may also have deterred potential attendees

The negativity of some RL fans - you've just had the opportunity to see and experience a festival of Rugby League across 4 sections of the game. The best sport on the planet has just had the best players on the planet in town for 5 weeks. If you can't enjoy seeing the Brazilian Ladies having a ball, the Greeks & Jamaica scoring their first ever WC cup tries, the respect each team show each other, and the absolute commitment of all of the players, I'm not sure where else you would go

[ChrisH]

Highs

- Australia v New Zealand semi final was brilliant. The best game of Rugby League I’ve seen in my life (I can’t think of a better one!). In fact I’m struggling to think of a better sporting event in the last 20 years or so. 

- The England v Samoa semi final also a great game, exciting, edge of seat drama.

- Very good attendance for the final, decent attendance at Elland Road for the semi and a great crowd of 43k for the opener at St James Park

- Greece, Jamaica and Samoa

Lows

- Some poor crowds for many of the group games

[RL Tragic]

On 19/11/2022 at 19:55, hw88 said:

Highs;-

Performance of the Pacific Islands nations

Wheelchair world cup

Addo-Carr's try

Lows;-

Performance of Scotland and Ireland

Too many blow out scores

England failing yet again

Overuse of the word 'inclusive'

Overuse of the word 'inclusive'
 

Drives me insane , Especially when it’s used to divert you from failings . 

[MatthewWoody]

Low: embarassing crowds for some WC game in rl heartland. 

[Jonty58]

England cruised through an under done Samoa straight off the Plane after NRL celebrations.

Beat a couple of non entities in France and Greece.

Started believing in themselves as World Cup winners until.....

They met a depleted Samoa again and were gifted the first try with a dummy runner attracting the Samoan defender to the point of being a block play from Gridiron.

Got every rub of the green from the Referee including a 10 minute sin bin and still could not win. 

This World Cup has not helped the game in the Northern Hemisphere at all.

Several of the English players would be lucky to make an NRL run on team.

 

 

 

[Tommygilf]

On 27/11/2022 at 11:23, MatthewWoody said:

Low: embarassing crowds for some WC game in rl heartland. 

There's a lot factoring into that.

1. The heartlands make it sound like RL is the number 1 show in town in these places. It is far from it.

2. There were far too many tickets available for games in a small portion of the North West of England. On top of being oversaturated, these grounds relied heavily on local support, leading into point 3.

3. These heartland towns for the most part aren't very big. They're small markets, with small overall numbers of potential RLWC attendees.

3 points there without mentioning ticket prices, or multiple games on the same weekend, or the quality of the match ups on display.

[Tommygilf]

https://fb.watch/h8qZbd-NKd/

A huge hit throwback to 2013 for you all, oh Papua New Guinea in front of over 18,000 at Headingley.

Feels like 2021 never got an atmosphere or a buzz like that game (Ireland vs the Kiwis at Headingley was close but not the same).

[Jughead]

36 minutes ago, Tommygilf said:

https://fb.watch/h8qZbd-NKd/

A huge hit throwback to 2013 for you all, oh Papua New Guinea in front of over 18,000 at Headingley.

Feels like 2021 never got an atmosphere or a buzz like that game (Ireland vs the Kiwis at Headingley was close but not the same).

I actually went to games in 2013 and there was clearly a palpable buzz around games and even games on TV. I never got that this time around. Maybe once or twice but nowhere near as much as 2013.