Its a disc race

Are people just being deliberately stupid in trying not to understand the point I assume Matty B is making?

I'm reading between the lines and assuming he's asking why is this game scheduled for Friday night in Australia/Friday morning in the UK, as opposed to Saturday night in Australia and Saturday morning in the UK?

Had this game been played Sat night Oz/Sat morning UK there would have been a chance that non-RL could have watched it. It would have been a good start to a sporting Saturday. Playing it on a Friday is an utterly stupid decision. The biggest England game of the World Cup group stages and it's going to go virtually unnoticed on a Friday morning workday. Do you honestly think that England v Lebanon is going to attract the casual observer in the same way that the Australia game would have done?

I know that Australia are hosting the tournament and so it's great to take into account their needs and maybe Friday night was good for them. But seriously, RL isn't exactly in a position that it can stupidly miss the chance to showcase the game.

Nah I think you're giving him far too much credit there



Anyway this world cup does not revolve purely around England and us brits watching from over here. This game is launching the whole tournament and it is simply how the fixtures have been arranged. There are three games being played on Saturday morning/evening so it couldn't have been played at that time.
I'm sure a Friday night game will generate plenty of interest in the southern hemisphere, like I say not everything is catered for England - did we give a sh*t what time the Aussies had to get up to watch their games when the WC was held here? Don't think so.

Perhaps.

It just saddens me because I see it as a lost opportunity to promote RL in England/UK. I get that the Aussies are hosting it but would it really have been that bad for them to play it on Saturday evening? At the Olympics the football competition began before the official opening ceremony. The matches at the RLWC are being played at different venues anyway so it's not as if the opening ceremony even means that much compared to an Olympics where the bulk of the main events take place in one city and one stadium. Would it really have mattered to people attending Papa New Guinea against Wales if that game had taken place before the official world cup opening? I doubt it.

Ah, well, hopefully people can still tune in to watch the semi-final against NZ and perhaps even a final against the Aussies.

This is exactly right. We even had some Sunday games in the Four Nations last year, in Australia and New Zealand that was very early Monday morning, didn’t see any complaints about that on here

It's a ridiculous thing to moan and complain about. The tournament is in Australia!

8 winners and 12 competitors over 20 games is far better than 3 winners from 14 (almost assuredly to be 3/15) and one other side in the Final but who have not won it*.
Note. As you counted West Germany and Germany as the same, I have done the same for Great Britain and England......

BBC2 Floodlit Rugby League Trophy. It's our spiritual home. Now be quiet and get me a Bovril.

Yes. In Australia, which means everyone is watching it over here Friday morning.

My point was why not play the game Saturday night in Aus so we can watch the game Saturday morning (ie when it’s not a work day for us on the UK).

If they have a Friday night launch then they get the momentum with a weekend full of other games (3 games on Sat, 3 on Sun).

IIRC RLWC schedule for this year is based around Fri-Sun games, which should maximise the attendances, and avoids midweek matches.

Great predictions fun time frankie.

'It's a joke' RLfans go to phrase.

Just noticed the bbc are showing Oxford university v Cambridge university rugby union tomorrow. There must be close to zero interest in this game, it smacks of the public school old boys brigade, what next Eton’s under 16’s games?

The attendance will be better than any World Cup game bar the final so hardly “close to zero interest”

Regards

King James

Tbf they showed the rugby league varsity on sky sports for a fair few years

yep , "its a joke" is a joke.

BBC and sky sports are quite different, one a dedicated sports broadcaster, the other a public service broadcaster.

Was it a good standard? I know for current universities they're nowhere near the best. Leeds Met and Northumbria dominate the Northern Premier League and country at BUCS level, with Loughborough and Uni of Gloucester being the best of the Southern Premier League.

What was the attendance? I watched a little bit of the HSBC Dubai sevens last week, there looked less than 100 people at that major global sporting event.

It’s always around the 25k to 35k Mark. To be fair though, Army v Navy gets around 60-70k so maybe the bbc should show that. As another comparison the RL navy v army gets about 1.2k

Regards

King James

Pretty decent, probably next step down from that. Unfortunately in recentyears Cambridge have struggled somewhat

25,133.


Couple of things here.
First up, why watch a sport you evidently don't like and secondly, having attended numerous HSBC 7's events around the world I can confirm that there is very little "spectating" going on, but rather a lot of Drinking on the concourses......as I am sure was the case at the aptly named SEVENS STADIUM in Dubai....
I might be wrong, but I believe that whilst it isn't a major event, it is actually a global one that sees UAE, South Africa, 'stralya, New Zealand, USA, Canada, Hong Kong, Singapore, England and France all host weekends......if I a wrong and you are actually a big fan of the game (why else would you have watched it?) then I can highly recommend the Las Vegas event which is in March next year....but be quick because it regularly gets 80k crowds.

It was around 25k last year, 26 in 2012. Tbh the varsity attendances have dropped considerably since their heyday in the 90's when they used to get 60k regularly watching.

I quite like watching 7’s thanks very much, when did I say otherwise?

I was just commenting that there looked less than 100 people in the crowd, just big empty stands, the kind of sight some RLfans members would wet their pants over if it was an RL event and claim it would never happen in union.

No idea what the stadiums called but there were lots of HSBC and Fly Emirates adverts, didn’t notice any others. I don’t think anyone was on the concourse either.