THE World Club Challenge was a brilliant spectacle at the weekend, with St Helens eventually running out 13-12 winners.
A golden point drop goal from Saints’ young halfback star Lewis Dodd proved the match winner as all those associated with the Merseyside club broke out into superb celebrations at the achievement they had just secured.
In doing so, Saints became the first English team to win the title in Australia since Wigan beat Brisbane back in 1994 – and it made it even sweeter for Super League by the fact that Paul Wellens’ men were given no chance of beating NRL champions Penrith Panthers by the Australian press and pundits.
In the build-up to the fixture, it was revealed that over a thousand St Helens fans had made the journey to the BlueBet Stadium in the mountains, but the overall attendance figure was 13,873.
That number proved to be the lowest attendance for 23 years despite the incredible support from Saints fans across the hemispheres.
The crowd back in 2000 at the then-named JJB Stadium in Wigan stood at 13,394, but ever since then there has usually been a great appetite for the World Club Challenge which has been proven in attendance figures.
Why is that? Perhaps Penrith and NRL fans believed the result was a foregone conclusion or perhaps fans just didn’t have an interest in the competition.
It is the first World Club Challenge competition to be held since 2020 and though the BlueBet Stadium does only have a capacity of 22,500, it was hoped that it would be a sell-out for the titanic clash of Super League and the NRL.
The fact that it fell almost 10,000 spectators short of a sell-out isn’t encouraging for the attitude towards the World Club Challenge Down Under.
