Quote ="MOT"I know its been said a lot on this thread but the bid can't have been good enough. Its not the rfl you should be annoyed at it should be the council who didn't produce a good enough bid.'"
Exactly, there isn't another logical explanation.
The most logical plan for the RFL and the WC would be to have as much of a geographical spread for the games possible. Doncaster and Sheffield would be good areas to take the games because they aren't really part of the heartlands, but are near enough for a large portion of RL fans to travel relatively easily and inexpensively. It makes better business sense because you have core support who can go and locals who are new to the game.
However, if they haven't picked the only logical conclusion we can come to is that Doncaster and Sheffield's bids just weren't good enough. Doncaster and Sheffield would needed to have proved to the RFL that they can fill out a stadium. They would have to prove that they have a plan for facilities around the evnt, in terms of connections with local hotels and transport companies and the like, and also for promotion, i.e. how they will promote the matches and who too. It isn't enough to say "Well, we have a cracking stadium" because plenty of places interested in RL have cracking stadiums nowadays, you need to say what else you have and can do beyond that to make sure it is a real success.
This means that despite all those factors that favour Doncaster and Sheffield over a lot of other places that have been picked, if they haven't been picked the fault falls squarely on those that put the bid together.
We also don't know which are the semi final venues yet. My guess is the opener, semi double header and final will be split between Wembley, OT and Millenium, but you never know Doncaster or Sheffield could get a semi final match.
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